10 Reasons Women Over 60 in Water Aerobics Keep This Body Oil in Their Pool Bag (and Stop Scratching on the Drive Home)

1. The itch isn't your age. It's chlorine doing exactly what it's made to do

Chlorine is in the pool for one job: to break down whatever gets into the water. Germs, sweat, sunscreen, and the thin layer of natural oil on your skin, the seal that holds water in. At 30 that oil was back by morning. After 60 your body makes far less of it, so it isn't back by your next class, and three classes a week means your skin never catches up.

Then you shower, and the water your skin soaked up for an hour escapes into the air, taking your own moisture with it. That's the tight, itchy drive home. You don't have to give up the pool. Put the oil back while your skin is still damp: ADIRA contains no water at all, so 2–3 pumps hold the moisture in instead of letting it escape.

“I test our pool's chlorine every morning before the 8 o'clock class. That strong ‘pool smell’ isn't clean chlorine. It's chlorine that's been busy breaking down what swimmers bring in with them, the oils from their skin included.” — Roberta Tillman

2. Your pool-bag lotion is mostly water, and it goes on an hour too late

Be honest: how long is your shower after class? There's a line, the water is lukewarm, and the thin club towel gets a hard rub. The lotion stays in the bag, because nobody wants to rub in something sticky in a crowded locker room. You remember it at home an hour later, when the damp is long gone. And flip that bottle over: the first ingredient is almost always water, the same thing that's already evaporating off your skin.

“But doesn't an oil just sit on the surface?” Yes, and the surface is exactly what the chlorine took. That outer layer of skin is held together by oils, like mortar between bricks. The squalane and jojoba in ADIRA are close cousins of the oils your own skin makes, so on damp skin they blend into that layer instead of sitting on top like grease. It's absorbed in about a minute, right there on the bench, before your slacks go on.

3. Your shins stop itching on the drive home

Your lower legs have fewer oil glands than almost anywhere on your body, so they're the first place chlorine leaves bone-dry. That's why the itch so often starts in the car: rubbing one shin with the other foot at a red light, or reaching down to scratch through your slacks before you're out of the parking lot.

Sitting on the bench, smooth one pump down each damp leg, knee to ankle, and don't forget the backs of the knees. Most women feel their legs stay calmer within the first few classes, and the skin looks visibly softer in 3–4 weeks.

“I used to scratch my shins at every red light between the pool and my house. Now I oil them on the bench and forget they're even there.” — Carol, 71, The Villages, Florida

4. Your hands and forearms stop feeling like sandpaper after class

An hour of pushing water with your hands and forearms, then the wall soap, then the hand sanitizer at the front desk. By lunch the backs of your hands look dull and ashy, your knuckles feel rough, and your forearms catch on your sweater sleeves.

After your legs, rub what's left on your palms into the backs of your hands, your knuckles and up your forearms. It's absorbed before you've zipped your bag, with nothing left on your car keys, your steering wheel or your coffee cup.

5. The itchy strip between your swimsuit straps finally calms down

Your upper back and shoulders spend the whole class half in and half out of the water, splashed and air-dried over and over. Then they get the least attention in the shower and no lotion at all. That's the spot that itches under your bra strap all afternoon, the one you end up scratching with the handle of a hairbrush.

Pump the oil into your palms, rub them together, and press them over your shoulders as far down as you can comfortably reach. Or save that part for home and hand the bottle to your husband after your evening shower. It takes him ten seconds, and it's absorbed before your top goes on.

6. You stop scratching in bed on class nights

Pool days have a pattern. Fine in the morning, itchy by the evening news, and worst of all once the lights go out and there's nothing else to think about. A bedtime lotion is mostly water, and it's gone long before midnight.

ADIRA stays with your skin. It has bisabolol, the calming part of chamomile, to soothe the itch that comes with dry skin, and a soft touch of vanilla. You go to bed smelling like vanilla instead of the pool. The women in my classes tell me it's the first thing that lets them fall asleep on a class night without scratching.

“I'd lie awake scratching my legs every class night. Now those are the nights I sleep best, which is what the exercise was supposed to do all along.” — Linda, 68, Mesa, Arizona

7. The locker room routine adds about two minutes, and nothing gets on your clothes

1. Rinse for a full minute in warm water to get the pool water off. 2. Soap only where you really need it. 3. Pat yourself half-dry with the towel, don't rub. Your skin should still feel damp. 4. Sit down on the bench, pump 2–3 times into your palms and press it over your legs, arms and shoulders. 5. Give it about a minute, then get dressed.

The worry I hear most is “I can't have oil on my clothes.” On damp skin, ADIRA spreads thin and sinks in within about a minute: nothing on your slacks, the bench or the car seat. Two safety notes from me: always put it on sitting down, never standing on wet tile, and wipe your palms on your towel before you stand up. The bottle is glass, so it stays zipped in your bag, never out on the pool deck. If your club doesn't allow glass in the locker room, rinse again at home and do the same 2–3 pumps on damp skin the minute you walk in the door.

“I go straight to lunch with the girls after class, so I was sure it would leave spots on my slacks. Not one mark.” — Nancy, 66, Columbus, Ohio

8. It's about to get worse: winter pool days are the hardest on skin

Ask any water aerobics regular when her skin is at its worst and she'll tell you: November to March. The indoor pool air is heavy with that chlorine smell, you walk out with damp hair into a cold, dry parking lot, and then you go home to a furnace that dries out the whole house. Your skin gets hit three times before dinner.

That's why so many of my ladies start before the first cold snap, not after the first miserable week of winter. Keep one bottle in your pool bag and one next to the shower at home, and your skin heads into winter with its seal already back in place.

9. It costs less than the lotions and swim washes already in your bag

Count what you've tried: the special swimmer's body wash, the lotion that rides around in the bag, the hand cream, the big pump bottle by the bed. For many of the women in my classes, that adds up to $30–$40 a month, and the itch still shows up after every class.

With today's Buy 2, Get 1 Free, ADIRA works out to $19.97 a bottle: 3 bottles for $59.90 with free shipping. One for the pool bag, one for home, one for your class buddy. It isn't one more product for the pile. It puts back the oil layer the chlorine takes out.

10. You get 90 days (almost 40 classes) to feel the difference, or your money back

Three classes a week for 90 days is close to 40 trips to the pool. That's a real test. Use ADIRA after every one. If your skin doesn't feel softer and more comfortable, you get a full refund within 90 days.

Most women never send it back. They leave the bottle in their pool bag, and before long half the class is asking where they got it.