
Originally Posted by
Mr.Rose
The chlorine has no effect on the pruning of your skin. This is due to a phenomenon known as osmosis. Osmosis is described as the movement of water molecules through a semi-permeable membrane (aka your skin, cells etc) from a high concentration to an region of lower concentration until a state of equilibrium is reached. So basically, if you have a membrane (skin) and you have a cup of water with salt, and a cup of pure water, and separate them between the membrane, the water will move without inputted energy, to the side with salt as it wants to make both sides have an equal amount of salt, and hence achieve ionic/solute equilibrium. So basically, in your hands, feet, epidermis, you have water in your cells, 70% + of your body is water. In your cells, the movement of water in and out of cells (aka into the blood, into the lymphatic fluid, into cells, etc) is controlled through osmosis. It is non preferential and will move anywhere to achieve an equilibrium. So when you get into the pool, your epidermis extracellular fluid has a lower concentration of salt and minerals then the water in the pool around you. So naturally with osmosis, the water begins to exit your skin and move to the pool. This causes your epidermis to dehydrate, as it is losing water and prune up. This is why your skin gets wrinkled. Osmosis is slow, and takes a while; this is why it happens over a few hours. Now this is the reason then insist you put pool salt into your pool, to top this from happening. Remember dehydration can be fatal, so pelase drink plenty of water while swimming.