Its summer, and the heatwave that is taking over Southern England is enough to drive anyone mad. Droves of people are seeking refuge in the indoor pools and lidos across the country, and yours truly is no exception. Although, not recreationally, I now go to my public indoor pool to do lengths once a week, and on the first trip I thought that a speedo swimming cap would be my answer and saving grace to the issue of chlorine and natural hair. Unfortunately, no! It was great at keeping my hair back, but afterwards, my hair was crunchy, dry and unpleasant to touch.

What on earth should I do? On my second trip, I scoured the cupboards for products, and the internet for remedies, and came up with a combination of techniques that show vast improvement from the rest. These are simple pre- and post-swimming processes that I am happy to recommend to everyone. As I swim weekly and not recreationally I highly recommend that those of you with similar or more competitive swimming habits.

Thoroughly saturate your hair with fresh water before taking the plunge. This is the most common time you will find, and funnily enough something we used to do as children before we went into any pool. The notion behind this is once your hair is wet there will be less room for those evil salt and chlorine molecules to latch onto & into your hair. TAADDAAA.

Coat your hair with Conditioner. I use Trader Joe's Tea Tree or Carol's Daughter, but you can stick with whichever conditioner you use (preferably a natural one). This will act as a barrier between those horrid particles and your hair.

Seal with a mixture of oils. I like to use my own mixture of coconut, awarra, aragan and jojoba oils, but you can use any natural oils. The idea is that we need to seal the hair as water does not penetrate oils.

Twist your hair into a protective style. I do this to keep the product in, my hair in place and to avoid the hassle of hair and product on my face and skin. More importantly it makes sure that I avoid the horrible tangles that come with swimming. How I dread it so!

Use a swimming cap. Although I didn't get my speedo to do what I wanted initially, I figured I would give it another go. I made sure to keep my ears out, and although some water got in due to my own lack of cap understanding, I still felt that not much water got in. 

WASH HAIR THOROUGHLY. I always wash my hair immediately after I swim using a clarifying shampoo. For those of you who do not shampoo I guess you can continue with your routine. This is the only time I do shampoo, and for this I use Trader Joe's Tea Tree Shampoo.

Deep Condition. I usually deep condition, I've seen recommendations on just a regular conditioning treatment, which I am sure works for others, but with my hair type, it needs the extra moisture it can get in this climate. 

Moisturise with light oils. After I have washed, I like to give my hair a break from all the products, but still keep it moisturised. Hence, I dilute my oil mixture with some distilled water and rub throughout my hair. It keeps it nice a moisturised, without weighing it down.  However, you can just continue with your regular post-wash routine.