SWIM CAPS
I personally dislike swim caps due to the egg like appearance of the head when you have them on. It is even worst for people like me with long hair because an awkward bump appears in the back making the shape of the head look deformed. I purchase my first cap a couple of years ago when I decided to add swimming to my regular physical training. My main reason for acquiring the cap was that I didn’t want my hair to get wet and I didn’t want my hair to bother me while I was exercising.
Since their released swim caps have being worn to protect the hair from the water, from chlorine, and from the sun. In sports swim caps are also used to avoid water from entering the ears and to reduce drag from losing hair. Sport caps are normally made of latex and have the club logo on top, but as the swimmer gets more professional they normally change to a dome cap with structure to reduce drag.
At the beginning swim caps were rubberize and by 1920 they were made out of latex. Later In the 1940’s rubber became scare and only few women could afford to have a cap to protect they wavy look hairstyle. Such a hairstyle was expensive to maintain so women demanded caps and by 1940’s caps in different designs appear.
By 1950’s caps were in fashion with version of petals in the caps. Later on in the 1960’s and 1970’s when men started to wear long hairstyles pools started requiring caps in order to avoid clogs due to hair loss. Later on these requirements were eliminated and swim caps became out of fashion only to return on 1980’s for competitive swimming and the construction of indoor laps swimming pools.
My swim cap has a very basic design (I couldn’t find anything else in the sport’s store) so it matches with all my swimsuits and It’s made out of latex. It doesn’t really protect my hair from getting wet so its only function is to keep my hair in place and comply with the pool rules. It is suggested that in order to avoid getting your hair wet one should wear two caps; a chin strap style cap with an inner seal and a latex one like mine under it. This all just sound too impractical for a beginner swimmer like me so I haven’t try it jet.
