Still, that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice a dip in the pool just to avoid spending the rest of the season with parched skin and straw-like hair. As Dr. Idriss explains, the moisture-zapping side effects are actually pretty easy to combat. Soaking your hair in fresh water from the shower (or a bottle of Evian, if you’re fancy) before you dive in is a simple way to prevent damage — hair can only absorb a certain amount of liquid, so the wetter it is when you get in the pool, the less chlorine it’ll draw in. You can even apply a leave-in conditioner , Dr. Idriss says, to create a physical barrier between your hair and the chemicals.