Instead of ripping a tick in half with tweezers, smother it in liquid soap until it can’t breathe and backs out!
A nurse’s Facebook post about her simple, effective tick removal method went viral.
“Instead of trying to pull them off with your fingers, tweezers, or those fancy gizmos you can buy for tick removal, simply take a q-tip and dip it in liquid soap such as Dawn dish soap, and start making small circles around the tick. The soap fills the tick’s lungs and they can’t breathe, so they let go of the skin and come right off! Easy peasy!!” she wrote.
Another blogger recommends mixing Dawn dish soap with warm water, soaking a cotton pad in it and smothering the tick in it for 2 or 3 minutes, saying when the tick releases its grip it gets caught in the cotton fibers. From there, it can be pulled off of the pad with tweezers and drowned in the bowl of soapy water.
The San Francisco Gate notes that while brands like Dawn, Ajax, Palmolive, Joy have all reportedly been successful in the removal and killing of ticks, it is unknown whether natural liquid soaps have the same effect.
UPDATE: Not wanting to put toxins on my skin, I’ve tested out several natural liquid soaps including lavender and peppermint castile soap on my family and our cats over the last year (we live in the woods, so I’ve had several opportunities, and am happy to report they work too! I just squirt a drop on the tick and wait about 30-60 seconds for them to back out.