Can I Come to Your Pool to Wash My Hair?

By the looks of this past week, Summer has arrived to the North Fork.  Sunshine, full beaches, traffic and no parking spaces in Greenport are all signs of the season upon us.  So are invitations to swim in many of the local private swimming pools or dunk in someone’s jacuzzi. It sounds like a lot of fun to me, or does it?

I was wondering how my friends would feel if I went to their pool and tried to bathe and shampoo my hair in it?   I would only do it to prove a point, the point that the same chlorine used to keep their pool water clear is used to keep our household water “safe”.

Most of us know that when the pool is green, we add a shock of chlorine, and, sometimes as soon as  a few hours later, the water is crystal clear.  We also know that chlorine in our drinking water is essential to remove bacteria and therefore, not kill us.

But, with the availability of all kinds of water filters, why do we insist on allowing that chlorine to invade our bodies through our mouths and through our skin?  I am neither a doctor nor a chemist, and I have never been good in science.  So, please forgive my ignorance.  But if the water in the pool turns suddenly clear, I do wonder what happens to the essential flora in my intestines when I drink tap water.  And, since my skin is the largest organ in my body, I also wonder what happens to me when I absorb so much chlorine through all the pores widely opened by the hot chlorinated water.

I have been on the warpath against chlorine for a long time.  Let’s start with swimming pools.  I used to swim a lot, and always found that my skin got dry, my eyes itchy and my hair became dry and brittle.  I started using a swimmer’s cap and goggles, but could not cover the rest of my skin, so I have been swimming in pools a lot less.  I also know there are alternatives to treating your pool with chlorine, like the ozone technologies which have been used in Europe for over 50 years.  I would love to hear some comments about this.

When I owned a home, I had installed whole house water filters and immediately noticed that I had less hair loss, softer skin and great tasting drinking water.  The bonus was that I never again bought a plastic water bottle, but rather used  my own steel or glass bottle and filled it up with fresh, non-chlorinated tap.  I spent last weekend at my son’s home, and he and his wife fill bottles with tap water and keep them in the fridge.  Opening one of their bottles, I immediately smelled the chlorine as I uncapped it.  If you don’t want to spend the money on a whole house filter, or are renting, you can always get filters that fit right onto your taps, like the very common Brita filters.  

I purchased shower filters through the Isabella Catalog, which can also be  installed in the outdoor shower.  These are great, making a big difference on my skin and my hair.  Easy to install, you can take them with you when you travel!  If you have color treated hair, you will notice how much longer your color treatment lasts if you don’t add chlorine to your hair every time you wash it.  And I don’t know how much it costs to color your hair, but I can guarantee the return on your investment if you buy a filter will be very fast, and very high.

OK, you say, how about my laundry whites?  You are talking to a Clorox rebel!   I have not used Clorox for a long time, as I know that what goes down the sink also goes to our streams and ponds, and again, I think about the green in the pool turning clear, and wonder what chlorine does to the flora in our local waterways.  My whites are still white. 

There are many non- chlorine whiteners in the supermarkets, and they work.  I sometimes use Shaklee’s Nature Bright whitener when needed, but usually do what my grandmother did, use a pure white soap for stains, which has been called a “miracle soap” by my family.  There has never been a stain that this white soap has not taken out.  I buy this white soap in Argentina, and the closest thing to it in the US might be Ivory Soap.  I have, however, seen other white soaps in some of the natural foods markets in the US.

More things that have chlorine in it?  Toilet paper, kitchen paper, coffee filters, feminine hygiene products, and anything that looks white but shouldn’t be!  I buy a lot of chlorine free products at JET’s Dream in Greenport, as well as the reusable drinking bottles.

At the end of the day, it feels good to do my bit, and, in this case, help the environment while I am helping myself!.