Has enough dirt accumulated under your child's fingernails to grow a garden this summer?

Keeping germs and grime away is simple and requires just one thing: a bar of soap.

But instead of lathering up after digging in the dirt, have your child rake their fingernails across the soap before heading out to play.

The soap will fill the area under the nails, allowing no space for the dirt. When it's time to come in and wash up for snacks, the soap will dissolve and leaving behind only sparkly clean fingernails.

It should go without saying that this little trick should only be used with children old enough to understand that sucking their thumb or picking at their eyes with soap encrusted fingers would be a bad idea, but we'll throw it out there anyway.

Too bad this trick wouldn't work for the ears....................