Revisiting hair products/recommendations

[Kimela]

This discussion has popped up in several threads but I was hoping to start a new one with specific product recommendations.

Here’s the general ‘hair care’ recommendations I’ve gathered over the years. To best protect hair we should:

• Soak hair with fresh water prior to diving so the hair shaft is already full of fresh water so they're less likely to be penetrated with salt water
• After soaking with fresh water we should apply a leave-in conditioner or hair oil
• There are as many ideas about how to cover/braid/pony hair as there are people with hair!

Soaking my hair with fresh water before each dive comes with some challenges.

• I really hate to use bottled water - or the limited amount of fresh water on a dive boat - to soak my hair before each dive. It seems wasteful
• IF I do soak my hair, then use conditioner, I’m left with slippery hands to handle dive gear (open tanks, fasten my dive computer, maybe get goop on my mask, etc)
• If it’s chilly on the boat (and even if it’s not) I’m not inclined to soak my hair at all, as i’m trying to maintain my core body temperature - so I usually skip soaking my hair (usually will put water on the front of my head to slick back hairs that might otherwise get under my mask skirt, but that’s it)

So I’m wondering if anyone has experimented with soaking hair and applying conditioner or hair oil before leaving for the boat? Does it work? If yes, what are your favorite products and how much do you use?

I know this isn’t just a women’s issue - I’ve seen so many guys with enviable hair on dive boats!!!

 

[Nemrod]

I have long hair. I use AquaGuard (expensive) for both pool lap swimming and ocean diving. Lap swimming I do wet my hair before going in but not for diving. I use a neck gaiter or two, I was taught the trick by some DMs in Egypt who had long curly hair, pull the longest neck gaiter (or two) you can find down on to your neck and pull your hair out from under. Put your head down, lean over, so your hair hangs and pull the first, longest, neck gaiter down over your head and hair and put a cuff in the back of the gaiter, then tuck the top of the gaiter and your hair into the cuff with a twist, then pull the second gaiter up and over and then put a neoprene beanie cap, the kind with a chin strap, on over that assembly. Oh, yeah, put the conditioner or AquaGuard or both in before hand, on the dock, on the boat, wherever. Otherwise my hair gets way tangled up.

For lap swimming, I instead put my hair into some sort of bun with a large elastic tie. I found a large silicone swim caps meant for containing voluminous hair types over the mess to work much better than standard caps. Of course, for competitive swimming there has been controversy over such caps because they alter the natural shape and water length of the swimmer's body but for lap swimming I have not that worry.

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