Swimming essentials

[Spicykitten]

I’ve just started going swimming at my local leisure centre. What are your swimming essentials? In hope that I haven’t forgotten anything!

Swimsuit
Dock and Bay towel
Goggles
Wash bag (with shampoo, conditioner, body wash and body puff.
Hair ties
£1 coin for locker

If you need them tampons, pad for when you finish and tissues so you don't get blood on your towel when drying.

Hair turban and a Synio Shower attachment. They are great for those pump button showers that turn off every 10 seconds.

I am a very low tech swimmer so towel, googles, hat. I do have swim headphones and do quite like them so use sometimes. I literally get out, dry off and come home and shower. So i would add in comfy joggers and a hoodie.

I have a great swim bag and I keep the following in it:

Large clear wash bag (primark do great zip up ones) with goggles plus spares, swim cap plus spares, face wash if I happen to go there wearing make up, shower gel, conditioner (I don't use shampoo) shower scrubber thing, hair ties
Hand paddles, pull board and leg float
Flip flops
Deodorant, moisturiser, eye gel, and basic makeup in case I have to go on somewhere after

Add cossie and towel each time but having this all ready massively de-faffs the activity.

This blows my mind as I wash my towel each time, but I guess mine does go on the floor when I dry my feet, maybe yours doesn't..

This blows my mind! I will have swum 7 times this week, 5 on my own, 2 with DD4. Same towelling robe and hair towel for the week. Life is too short to be doing that much washing, and terrible from a cost and environment point of view. Just keep the towel off the floor.

I have in my swim bag

• big towel for body
• hair turban
• shampoo
• no rinse conditioner
• waterproof MP3 player loaded with my favourite songs
• deodorant
• moisturiser

I do always shower at the pool as usually go in the morning then don't go straight home. I shower off and put the hair turban on, then by the time I'm dry and dressed it's usually a quick job to blast it with the hair dryers they have there to get it dry enough to go about my day.

I need some kind of moisturiser too otherwise my face gets really dry from the chlorine.

Swimsuit
Towl
Hair towel
2 in 1 shampoo
Hairbrush
Waterproof headphones with audiobooks

This blows my mind as I wash my towel each time, but I guess mine does go on the floor when I dry my feet, maybe yours doesn't..

I would want to incinerate my towel if I'd put it on the floor at my pool - as hard as the cleaners work, they can't get to everything and children could have done all sorts on the floor.

I try not to touch the floor with my bare feet, let alone my towel!

I always use aqua ear drops. Useful incase you get water in your ear canal or are prone to swimmers ear.

+1 for swim cap if you've long hair. You can get ones that are fabricy material rather than the old plastic ones we used to wear at school - they don't stop your hair getting wet but they do stop it tangling, falling out of where you've tied it up, getting in your eyes etc!

Hair turban towel (again a must imo if you've long hair!)?

No, I deliberately don't put it on the floor for that very reason. The only day I might do that is Friday when it's going in the wash when I get home.

Costume
Goggles
Towel
Flipflops

Washbag with:
Shower gel
Shampoo
Conditioner
Cleanser
Moisturiser
Wide-toothed comb
Deodorant
Small barrel hairbrush

Sometimes contact lens stuff, in case I want to swap my lenses to glasses afterwards.

Locker token

I quite often skip the shower and do it at home, though, or just have a quick rinse without the whole hair washing and drying shebang.

I take a waterproof drawstring kit bag (actually it is DD’s old bag from her PE days in primary school!) so I can take towel and wash bag to the poolside without having to dash back to the chilly locker area for my shower stuff. Very efficient!

Oh, and I always go a couple of swims between towel washes, but my towel doesn’t touch the floor.

TALC
I can’t get properly dry in a humid environment without it.

Flip flops!

Also yes a bag for your wet things

My tip for feeling like you don’t want to use it again because it’s dirty now is.
well two things.

if you’re going to put one on the floor take a specific small towel to do that which you can chuck in the wash.

the big one. Don’t put it on the floor but also I always put the label (or if no label I sew some bright thread at one corner) at the bottom when I wrap it around myself so it means that the top half only ever touches the face/torso and the bottom corners only ever dry the feet while the bottom middle dry the intimate area. it happens that way naturally when you sit down with it round you as those are the bits of the towel that reaches those areas and the top half only ever stays near your/top half.

That means you don’t get that feeling of yuk I don’t want to use a towel that’s dried my feet near my face again.

I go with cossie on under leggings and a thermal top in winter. Shower at home as our leisure centre showers are useless.
Literally take a towel, comb and some cheap moisturiser.

Thanks all! I’ve added flip flops and moisturiser to my swim bag

This has never, ever occurred to me. I use one towel after my shower at home to do my entire body as it is all clean, so the same applies to my swimming towel. I don’t put the swimming one on the floor (put it on the bench to dry my feet). Which have walked from the shower to the cubicle, but the floors are really clean at our sports centre and dry fast so a cubicle floor is rarely wet. Home towels get washed once a week, swimming towel after maybe half a dozen uses.

Yes to contact lens stuff and glasses if I am going somewhere else first and want to wear the lenses beforehand or put them in again after swimming, but I normally go straight from home and back so take my lenses out and put glasses on before leaving the house. Then glasses sit on my towel at the poolside once I’ve got my (prescription) goggles on.

I keep a couple of towels in my swimming bag, dry them at home and re-use them for a couple of weeks. Never occurred to me to wash them after being on the floor and I have literally never had a verruca or athlete's foot.

Other essentials:
swimsuit (obvs)
cap (I have short hair but can't bear the sensation of even that mushing around in the water)
goggles
pool sliders (because walking on damp tiles is annoying)
brush
moisturiser
soap/shampoo
deodorant
locker padlock and key
pull buoy
mesh bag to carry stuff poolside

To add...
I don't think I have the spatial capability to organise parts of a towel to only touch certain bits of me.

This is one of the reasons I love Mumsnet, so much human variety, even when it comes to the relatively mundane aspects of life 😃

I only take my costume, a towel, sliders and a trolley dolly.
I only have a quick rinse off at the pool and then shower when I get home. Its a decent walk there so can't be doing with lugging a bag full stuff with me.