How to Protect Your Hair at the Pool and Beach

Summer in New Mexico means a lot of time in the pool. The outdoor lifestyle here is one of the best things about living in the Albuquerque area, and we're not about to tell you to skip the pool to protect your hair. But chlorine is genuinely rough on hair, especially color-treated hair, and a few small habits before and after you swim make a real difference in how your hair holds up through the season.

Here's what actually helps.

What Chlorine Does to Your Hair

Chlorine is a disinfectant, and it does its job very effectively. The problem is that it doesn't stop at killing bacteria. When it contacts your hair, it strips the natural oils from the shaft, raises and roughens the cuticle, and over repeated exposures, starts breaking down the protein structure inside the strand. That's why hair that swims a lot starts to feel dry, brittle, and rough, even if you're conditioning regularly.

For color-treated hair, chlorine accelerates fading significantly. It lifts color out of the shaft the same way it disinfects a pool. Blondes sometimes notice a slight green tinge from copper minerals in the water reacting with their hair. Brunettes just watch their color go dull faster than it should.

Salt water is a separate issue but a similar one. It dehydrates the hair shaft and makes it porous, which leaves it more vulnerable to breakage and more difficult to moisturize afterward. Between chlorine in the pool and UV exposure in the New Mexico sun, summer can take a real toll on hair if you're not doing anything to counter it.

The Pre-Soak Trick That Makes a Real Difference

Before you get in the pool, wet your hair thoroughly with clean water. This sounds too simple to work, but there's real science behind it. Hair is porous and absorbs liquid. When you pre-soak your hair with clean water, you're filling that porosity before you ever touch the pool. Once your hair is already saturated, it can't absorb as much chlorinated water because there's no room left.

You can take this a step further by applying a leave-in treatment or a lightweight oil to your damp hair before swimming. That adds a protective layer on the outside of the shaft and makes it even harder for chlorine to penetrate.

Rinse Right After You Get Out

The longer chlorine sits on your hair, the more damage it does. Rinsing immediately after you get out of the pool is one of the most effective things you can do. You don't need to do a full shampoo right at the pool, just get the chlorine off your hair as quickly as possible.

When you do shampoo, a clarifying shampoo does the best job of pulling chlorine, mineral deposits, and sunscreen residue out of the hair. Your regular sulfate-free shampoo cleans gently, which is great for everyday use, but after a pool day you actually want a deeper clean first.

What to Use After to Reset and Repair

After a clarifying wash, your hair needs to be put back together. Chlorine-exposed hair is more porous than usual, which means it needs something that actually repairs the strand, not just coats it. This is where a real treatment makes more of a difference than a heavier conditioner.

K18's leave-in treatment works at the molecular level to repair the internal structure of the hair shaft. It rebuilds the keratin chains that chlorine and heat and processing break down. Applied to clean, damp hair after your post-pool wash, it works while your hair dries and keeps rebuilding between washes. For hair that's doing a lot of swimming this summer, this is the thing that actually prevents cumulative damage from adding up over the season.

We also wrote a full post on repairing summer hair damage if your hair is already feeling the effects of this season. The repair strategies there work well alongside the protection steps above.

Not Sure Where to Start?

If your hair is already dry or damaged from the pool this summer, our Shop Your Routine tool can help you figure out the right wash, treatment, and repair routine for where your hair is right now. It takes about 60 seconds.

And if you want to talk it through in person, stop by Hairpins & Scissors at 7005 4th Street NW in Los Ranchos. We'll take a look and figure it out together.

Love your Hairstylists at Hairpins & Scissors!