Chlorine is a chemical that we use in our everyday lives a lot more than you may think. Not only does it keep our pools clean & healthy, we use it to clean our clothes, sanitize our dishes, & it's even in our drinking water. Just like with most things these days, there are some common misconceptions about the chemical.
The smell of chlorine means there is to much in the water.
FALSE: The smell of chlorine actually is when chlorine bonds with nitrogenous products in your water to form chlorimines or combined chlorine. This is also the culprit for red & irritated eye's. The fact is that properly adjusted water chemistry has no smell, and does not bother the eye's. What red eyes and that overpowering smell actually means is that you need to super chlorinate your pool with granular chlorine because your chemistry is off. If you have a salt system, turn it up to 100%. That lagoon needs a deep clean.
Chlorine will turn blonde hair green
FALSE: This emerald color change is actually due to a combination of alkalinity & copper. Copper & other metals get into the water from pipes, heater coils, filtration equipment, and kids diving for coins. The alkalinity works as a magnet drawing in the metals. Most shampoo's are high in alkaline making the problem worse. There are certain "swimmer's shampoo's" you can use to counter act the reaction. Either way, this is not caused by high chlorine levels.
Swimming too much in a chlorinated pool will result in Swimmer's Ear
FALSE: Swimmers ear is caused by the bacteria pseudomonas aeruginosa, the most common pathogen found in pools and spas. Unsanitary pools cause cause a host of issues. Some symptoms of concern are itchy skin rash, an earache, pink eye, diarrhea, stomach pain, a yeast infection or a cough. The symptoms usually show up a few days after swimming. If this does occur, your pool is in need of a major cleaning and chemical adjustment.
As you can see, the culprit to common negative chlorine associations is an unclean swimming pool. Let chlorine (or salt / minerals) help clear this up for you by working with you! For more information on this topic check out our other related articles below:
Swim Happy!