How Do You Get Chiggers off Your Body?!

Updated on April 24, 2011
R.D. asks from Richmond, VA
9 answers

My 5 year old daughter is covered in chiggers (eww!)... I know I need to wash her bed linens, towels, clothes, etc...

But what are your tried and true remedies to get them out of her SKIN??

1 mom found this helpful

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S.S.

answers from Daytona Beach on

we live in FL where there is a ton of spanish moss. we always used clear fingernail polish to get them off.

3 moms found this helpful

More Answers

K.M.

answers from Chicago on

You need to take clear nail polish and put it over the areas that are infested with the chiggers to suffocate them... they are nasty little things. I have also in a pinch used Aqua Net strong hold hairspray but it has to be thick... basically the point is to suffocate them so they die and then exfoliate in a shower not a bath!

2 moms found this helpful

J.B.

answers from Houston on

I am another vote for clear nail polish. That is what we always did at summer camp and it always worked great, good luck!

2 moms found this helpful

B.C.

answers from Norfolk on

Just wash with soap. They are not in her skin - they do not burrow in..
My sister used to get chigger bites from walking across fields in the tall grass.
Here's how to treat the bites:
http://www.wikihow.com/Treat-Chigger-Bites

1 mom found this helpful

C.D.

answers from Columbia on

My mom is a firm believer in lye soap for chiggers and any other kind of bites or itchies. We have tried it and it works really well.
Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

G.T.

answers from Modesto on

wow. Im glad we dont have chiggers in CA. I like the hairspray suffocation answer, seems like that would work well. Thats what I do to ants and other bugs. Thats the only reason I have a can of aquanet, it freezes bugs in their tracks.

1 mom found this helpful

V.W.

answers from Jacksonville on

Please follow Peg's advice. I grew up around them and always thought they were hard to remove and we used just about ALL of the "home remedies". Nail polish, vaseline, etc..

That was years ago before the internet existed. When my son picked some up climbing trees last year.... I looked them up online. Boy was I surprised by how gross it REALLY is. They actually are not difficult at all to removed-- a regular bath with soap and water and a decent scrub with a washcloth should do the trick easily enough. The problem is that once they have bitten, the skin has a reaction to their saliva. They don't actually bite you to eat you. What they do is inject their saliva, similar to a spider who injects its victim with saliva once cocooned safely in its web. The saliva begins to digest the "meal" (your skin) and the chigger/spider then sucks up the liquid after it is "digested" (by the saliva). So the bites aren't where the chiggers are attached to you. They are where they have injected saliva that is actively digesting your skin. You cannot wash that away.

Seriously... read up on this. It is really quite creepy. My best solution is to come in from the outdoors and immediately take a good soapy bath! ;) Once the damage is done, so to speak, a good neosporin type ointment can help with the healing and help prevent infection at the wound sites.

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K.H.

answers from Richmond on

wash the bedding in the hottest water possible, get the chiggers off the skin by putting clear nail polish on the chigger bites, it kills them, when a clear liquid comes out of the chigger bite, the little guy is dead.
K. h.

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