If you’re in the swimming pool a lot, the chlorine, bromine, salt and other chemicals can be very harsh on your skin, hair, and swim gear. Repeated exposure to pool water starts to break down the materials of your swim gear and also depletes your skin and hair of its natural oils. For those with sensitive skin, chlorine can trigger allergies, rash or even sinus problems. To help you keep yourself and your loved ones healthy and safe from pool chemical-related problems, we’ve provided tips on how to protect skin, hair, and swim gear from pool chemicals. How To Protect Skin from Pool Chemicals Pre-Swim: Take a quick rinse before swimming, or apply sunscreen or lotions Outdoor pools: Sunscreens for children in particular should use non-irritating ingredients, like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. These are the most effective at protecting skin from sun damage and also give extra protection against pool water. Indoor pools: DermaSwim Pro is a pre-swimming lotion created to help protect sensitive skin against pool water chemicals.
To prevent excess buildup of oils in swimming pools, apply lotion of choice, wait a minute and take a quick shower before getting into the water. Post-Swim: Rinse with vitamin C after swimming! Chlorine is a chemical that bonds to our skin and hair, which makes it difficult for water alone to remove it. That’s why after swimming we often carry the smell of chlorine on us for a day or two. Vitamin C has been proven to be an effective neutralizer of chlorine’s bond to hair and skin! You can create a topical spray by mixing one teaspoon (5g) of Vitamin C powder or crystals into about 500ml of water. Vitamin C crystals are available at Trader Joe’s and most health and wellness stores. Another option is to purchase pre-made ones! Swimspray is a common go-to Vitamin C rinse, and is sprayed on to the hair and skin before use of your regular shampoo. Post-Swim: Use a moisturizing lotion with antioxidants after swimming. Chlorine, bromine, and salt aren’t the only irritants for our skin.
Water itself removes the layer of oil from our skin that allows dryness to set in. It is important to remember to moisturize fully after each swim with vitamin-infused moisturizers such as Neutrogena Naturals Multi-Vitamin Nourishing Moisturizers, or The Body Shop’s Body Butters. Coconut oil and Baby oil, available at most health and wellness stores, are also fantastic ways of moisturizing the skin! Lastly, the most basic way to stay hydrated is to replenish! Drink lots of water after swimming. How To Protect Hair from Pool Chemicals Pre-Swim: Wet hair with cool tap water before swimming, OR use pre-swim hair products! Hair is porous and absorbs easily. An easy way to protect hair from chlorine, bromine, and salt is to rinse it with cool tap water, making it less likely to soak up chlorinated pool water. Pre-swim conditioning shampoos such as Ultraswim keeps hair healthy while swimming. Coating your hair with olive oil, baby oil or coconut oil before putting on a swim cap also does a good job of protecting it from chlorinated water!
Post Swim Treatment: Rinse your hair immediately! Use a shampoo that neutralizes the bond of chlorine and can strip it fully from your hair, or use Chlorine neutralizers like Swimspray alongside your regular shampoo and conditioner. After showering, use a low heat setting on your hair dryer to prevent drying your hair out even more. How To Protect Swim Gear from Pool Chemicals Pre-Purchase: Check the tags before you buy! Swimsuits come in a variety of material combinations that influence durability. Polyester is the most durable, and also the most resistant to chlorine, compared to nylon and spandex suits. AquaMobile has reviewed the different types of swimsuit material available in this blog post, as we know how important it is to look for chlorine-resistant and fade-resistant fabrics if you want durable swim gear! Pre-Swim: Rinse your swimsuit before swimming in cool water! Warmer water has degenerative effects on your swim gear, so be sure to rinse in cool water.
Like hair, wetting your swimsuit before getting in the pool protects it by preventing too much absorption of chlorinated pool water. While swimming: Pay attention to where you sit! Poolside surfaces, seats and decks might be too rough for swimsuit material and cause wear and tear much faster. Post-Swim: Hand-wash your swimming suit in cold water and air dry! Rinsing in cold water immediately after swimming helps remove a lot of chlorine or salt before it can permanently damage the suit. Do not use bleach or the washing machine! This will cause your swim gear to deteriorate quickly. Use specialty detergents for your swimsuits to preserve its condition, and slow down wear-and-tear. The ZERO detergents by Woolite is a great detergent for washing your swimsuit. For simple at-home solutions, use baking soda to remove sunscreen stains by letting it sit in the baking soda water mix for 1-2 hours before washing. Another option is to add a few tablespoons of vinegar when washing to help neutralize chlorine.
Keep your swimsuit out of the sun and give it 24 hours to completely dry and regain its original shape before using it again! This also prevents bacteria and mildew from growing in the fabric. Do you have tips on how to protect skin, hair, and swim gear from pool chemicals? Share with us below in the comments section!By Sarah C. Corriher The Health Wyze Report The consumption of chlorine changes HDL (“good”) cholesterol into LDL cholesterol, creates oxidative damage throughout a body, acts as an immunosuppressant, causes severe arterial damage, and it destroys fatty acids which are needed for heart health. Chlorine is even one of the main causes of respiratory illnesses in wintertime, for people use humidifiers, which release chlorine gas when they are used with chlorinated water. Showering in chlorinated water similarly releases the gas, and this is strongly tied to asthma. Nevertheless, chlorine remains the standard chemical that is used to sterilize water supplies throughout the world.
It is toxic to every living thing. It is truly effective at killing the bacteria and microscopic parasites that live inside water, but it is likewise destructive to human health. Societies throughout the world have paid an incredible price in carnage for having chlorine-sterilized water. While the ‘purification’ of water by chlorine has prevented large-scale outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, it has also led to our current epidemics of heart disease and cancer, to name a couple. The real difference in consequence is that we are now dying torturous deaths over a span of decades from poisoning, instead of having much quicker deaths from pathogens. While this may seem as an accomplishment upon a cursory inspection, it is worth considering that most people survived the bacterially-laden water of yesteryear without long-term consequences, but virtually nobody escapes the ravages of chlorine in the present. Chlorine first causes extreme oxidation damage, then it depletes the oxygen from the body to cause acidosis, which stimulates cancers.
The arteries are typically in a terrible condition by that time, from the same inflammatory causes. The chlorination problem was first discovered in Americans who were participating in the Korean civil war of the 1950’s. The effected soldiers were issued chlorine tablets to “purify” the water inside their canteens. It was noticed that the twenty-something soldiers were developing severe cardiovascular diseases at an astonishing rate, which tended to mimic the conditions of their grandparents. More of these American soldiers died from heart disease in their thirties and forties than from the bullets of Korean communists. Avoidance is always the best policy concerning chemicals, but avoidance is not the only solution to the problems of chlorine exposure. Chlorine can be neutralized with vitamin C before it enters a body, or even after it has been consumed. Vitamin C is more accurately known as either ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate, and regardless of name, it chemically destroys chlorine.
The reverse is equally true. Chlorine also destroys vitamin C. Whichever is Charlie's Soap Oxygen ... consumed in a sufficient amount wins. Most people of the civilized world do not eat enough citrus fruits; and they thereby do not get enough vitamin C in the diets, so chlorine wreaks havoc throughout the Western World as a result. Furthermore, since chlorine depletes vitamin C within the body, it should be effortless to understand the devastating health effects of chlorine, which is in effect, an anti-vitamin C chemical. Fortunately, it takes very little vitamin C to neutralize the amount of chlorine that is found inside our water, as will be shown later. Whenever chlorine is neutralized industrially, harsh sulfur-based chemicals are used, which lower the oxygen content of the water, and these chemicals are themselves somewhat toxic. The United States Department of Agriculture and Forest Service sought a safe replacement for such chemicals in 2005, to use whenever factories dispose of their chlorinated water.
If the chlorinated water were dumped into septic systems, it would kill the beneficial bacteria; whereas it would kill the fish and plants if it were spewed into lakes and streams. Therefore, the chlorine is always neutralized first. In April of 2005, the U.S.D.A. Forest Service studied the effects of the two forms of vitamin C (ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate) on chlorine. The group, led by Brenda Land, a sanitary engineer, found that both forms are extremely effective in neutralizing chlorine, and of course, neither form of vitamin C is toxic to marine life. They published their report titled, “Using Vitamin C To Neutralize Chlorine in Water Systems”, for the benefit of waste water operators. It chronicled that just a single gram of vitamin C Hydrogen Peroxide 3% F... neutralizes the chlorine from 100 gallons of water that has been chlorinated at a concentration of 1 P.P.M, which is the standard concentration for drinking water in the United States. For reference, the average bathtub has a capacity of 60 gallons at the point of overflowing.
While most municipal water in the U.S. contains about 1 P.P.M. of chlorine, it may legally contain up to 4 P.P.M. Since 1 teaspoon of ascorbic acid is about 5 grams, less than a quarter of a teaspoon would be needed to neutralize the chlorine within the hypothetical bathtub. Using 1 full teaspoon would guarantee that all of the chlorine would be quickly neutralized, even if the highest levels of chlorine were present. The reaction is rapid and invisible. The inclusion of vitamin C is never enough to make tap water truly safe, because municipal water contains an array of damaging chemicals and metals that are unaffected by vitamin C. Fluoride, pesticides, pharmaceutical drugs, and heavy metals are typical. Some of the most harmful substances in our water are the THMs (trihalomethanes), which result from chlorine reacting to organic compounds that are already inside the water and our bodies. It is currently unknown as to whether vitamin C has any effect upon THMs, the most notorious of which is chloroform, a carcinogen.
It is less widely known that the bleaching action of chlorine compounds has a tendency to produce dioxin compounds, as well. The impurities of municipal water and their dangers are detailed in our report about tap water. Whenever chlorinated water is the only type available, adding a pinch of vitamin C can have a major impact upon reducing its damage and improving taste. Taking vitamin C supplements 30 minutes prior to drinking a chlorinated beverage can drastically lessen the taste of chlorine, in addition to reducing its damage. Therefore, taking vitamin C before going to a restaurant is usually a wise choice. Also, applying iodine transdermally would greatly thwart fluoride absorption. Bundle: 2 Gal Big Berk... Those with fish aquariums can use vitamin C instead of chemicals to neutralize chlorine. Vitamin C is significantly safer for fish than dechlorination chemicals. The chart shows how much vitamin C is needed for common tank sizes, assuming a high chlorine content of 4 P.P.M. Be sure to check the pH of the water after adding vitamin C, because it is a mild acid.