This is a short article deliberately, and for the same reason as skin after chlorine. Ordinary care is genuinely brief, and everything past ordinary care belongs to people with clinical training.
Salt is rarely on its own
The thing that distinguishes sea swimming is not salt by itself. It is that salt almost always arrives with two companions.
- Wind. There is nearly always wind at the coast, and wind on wet skin is drying and cooling.
- Sun. Sea swimming is outdoors, with the highest reflected component of any swimming environment because the aspect is completely open. See reflection and the water surface.
- Duration. A sea swim is usually part of a longer time at the coast: the walk, the changing, the swim, the standing about, the walk back.
Salt left on skin and then dried by wind and sun is the combination people notice, and it is why the routine below starts with rinsing.
The problem with a sea swim is rarely the swim. It is the two hours at the coast wrapped around it.
Ordinary care
- Rinse in fresh water. Many beaches and open water sites have nothing, which is why open water swimmers carry water in the car. It is the single most useful step.
- Dry properly, including behind the ears, between the toes and under wetsuit edges.
- Get warm and dressed. After cold water this outranks everything else on the list.
- Moisturise if your skin feels dry. Ordinary emollient, ordinary use.
- Lips and the exposed face. Lips, nose and ears take the wind, the sun and the salt together.
Anything painful, broken, blistered, weeping, spreading, itching persistently or not settling is not a swimming question. Speak to a pharmacist or a GP, and for anything urgent NHS 111. If you become unwell after swimming in open water, mention the swimming, because it is relevant context. For sunburn see the NHS page on sunburn.
Water quality is a separate question
Skin care after a sea swim and the quality of the water you swam in are two different subjects, and it is worth keeping them apart. Bathing water classification, short term pollution and where to check them are covered in bathing water classification, using the Environment Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, bathing waters and Natural Resources Wales.
We are not going to connect any symptom to any water, because that is a clinical judgement about an individual and we are not qualified to make it. If you are concerned, say where you swam when you speak to a clinician, and report a suspected pollution incident to the environmental regulator, which is a separate route.
Wetsuits, chafing and edges
A wetsuit produces its own ordinary skin effects at its edges, particularly at the neck where the material moves against skin repeatedly during a swim. Open water communities discuss fit and lubrication extensively and that is the right place for that conversation.
What is worth saying here is the boundary: rubbing that leaves skin reddened is ordinary; rubbing that breaks skin is not, and broken skin is a matter for a pharmacist or a GP rather than for perseverance. A wetsuit also changes the exposure map rather than removing it, as covered in cold water, wind and skin.
Does salt water feature here?
Not usually. Some indoor pools use treatment systems that generate their disinfectant from salt in the water, which people sometimes describe as a salt water pool. It is still a treated, disinfected pool and not sea water, and the after swim routine is the same as any other pool.
The indoor routine remains: rinse, dry, moisturise if needed, get warm.
Sea swimming is where salt matters, and it matters mostly because it arrives with wind and sun. Rinsing is the step that removes the combination.
Coastal sites often have no fresh water at all, which turns this from a two second decision into something you have to bring with you.
Getting rinsed, warm and dry after a sea swim
Owns bringing what the site does not have: water to rinse with, a towel, warm clothes, something to change behind. Owns getting out before they are too cold to manage getting out.
For a group, owns having somewhere for people to be afterwards, owns telling people in advance what to bring, and owns noticing when somebody is not warming up. That last one is a safety matter, not a comfort one, and it escalates to emergency services rather than to patience.
Where a beach or venue operator exists, owns rinsing facilities, changing provision and shelter. Most open water sites have none, which is a fact to plan around rather than a complaint.
Where a duty attachesCold water guidance from the RNLI. Skin and sunburn guidance from the NHS, the British Association of Dermatologists and Cancer Research UK, sun, UV and cancer. Water quality from the Environment Agency and its Scottish and Welsh counterparts. Nothing here is medical advice.
Sand, grit and getting changed
A practical annoyance rather than a health matter, and worth a paragraph because it is the thing that actually makes people miserable after a beach swim. Sand and salt together, on skin that is then rubbed with a towel and pulled into clothing, is abrasive. Rinsing first, where there is water, deals with most of it. Where there is no water, letting skin dry before brushing sand off works considerably better than rubbing it while wet.
The same applies to feet before putting shoes on, and to the inside of a wetsuit, which will hold grit until it is rinsed and will reintroduce it at the next swim.
Ears after sea swimming
Ears come up constantly in open water communities, particularly among people who swim through the winter, and there is a large amount of informal advice circulating about them. We are not going to participate in it.
What we will say is the boundary, because it is a useful one. Water in the ear that clears on its own shortly after a swim is ordinary. Pain, blocked hearing that persists, discharge, or anything recurrent is not ordinary and is a matter for a pharmacist or a GP. Ear problems are one of the most common reasons regular swimmers see somebody, they are entirely treatable by people qualified to do it, and they are made worse by improvised remedies from swimming forums.
Facilities decide whether any of this happens
All of the above assumes fresh water, somewhere to stand, and a few minutes. At a managed lake venue with a changing block that is trivial. At a beach with nothing it is entirely down to what you brought, which is why open water swimmers carry a container of water, a towel, a changing robe and warm clothes as a matter of routine rather than as an indulgence.
For a group leader, that is a planning fact. A session at a site with no facilities is a session where the leader has to tell people in advance exactly what to bring, and where the after swim period needs somewhere for people to be. It is covered in an outdoor group session plan.
Summary
Rinse, dry, get warm, moisturise if you feel dry, look after lips and ears. Bring the water with you because the site probably has none. Keep the skin question and the water quality question separate. And if something is actually wrong, that is a pharmacist or a GP and this article does not go further on purpose.