After swimming in a pool, lake or ocean, do you wash your bathing suit in the washing machine or just rinse it out in the sink?

Machine and dryer. I get my bikinis at Target – no need to treat them special.

Rinse them in the sink and try to wash them ASAP. I feel that the rinse extends the time between wear and wash.

Sink usually.

If I am going to be swimming a lot, like a vacation at the beach or if I’m somewhere with a pool, I’lll just rinse it out really well and hang to dry.

If I have been swimming I rinse it out before washing, too, so that the chlorine doesn’t bleach out any other clothes in the wash.

I usually do the sink, and once in a while throw it in the machine.

I’m like @zenvelo . If I plan on going swimming several days in a row I’ll just spray it off with a hose and hang it up, otherwise it goes in the washer.

What @zenvelo and @El_Cadejo said.

Rinse until until I have a load of laundry, then throw it in with the lot for wash/dry.

Have people had issues with the chlorine sitting on their swimsuits and causing some sort of damage? I never rinse mine out before washing it, even if it’ll be a couple of days before I throw it in the wash. I’ve had the same swimsuit for two years and it still looks new. I’m wondering what the whole rinsing thing is for if you’re just going to wash it anyway.

@livelaughlove21 I can only speak for myself, but I am not rinsing it before washing, I am rinsing in lieu of washing it. Sometimes I don’t bother to even rinse my suits. I swim a lot though.

@JLeslie Yeah, even when I go on vacation, I just take the thing off and hang it up to air dry for the next day.

I basically live on vacation. The pool is always a possibility every day.

I always understood that if the chlorine wasn’t thoroughly washed out of it, it’s like bleach – it would deteriorate the elastic and fabric.

machine wash, line dry

@jca I think it does over time.

@JLeslie We have a pool in our subdivision that’s really nice and I’d love to be there every day, but my job prevents me from doing that. By the time I get home, cook dinner, and eat, the sun is setting. I’m happy to spend a couple hours tanning by the pool once a week. I’ve got some pretty nice tan lines to show for it, though.

@jca Must be over a lot of time, because I’ve never had this problem, even with my cheap Target swimsuits.

I sit in the shade by the pool or swim laps.

Chlorine does affect the suit, because my mom only swims indoors and they eventually fade. It takes a while though. If you only vacation swim I wouldn’t worry about it much. Even if you just swim in the summers, which in most of the country is 3–4 months a year.

The suits I use for aquacise wear out much faster than my other swimsuits because of the chemicals in the pool. I always rinse my suits out but use cheapo ones for the gym.

In the days of cotton and elastic swim suits, I think it was required to rinse a suit in order to get eaven one season of swimming out of it. The sun and chlorine would quickly fade cotton and deteriorate elastic. Today, I think most swim suits are made of synthetic materials that have been created to reduce fad and rot.

Still and all, chlorine is hard on everything, and there’s no way of knowing the levels of chlorine in a pool. 30+ years ago I remember swimming in pools where you could barely open your eyes underwater for the burn, and the chlorine smell permeated everything. We had to rinse our suits, and old habits die hard.

Always in the washer.

If pool, you need to rinse off all the chlorine ASAP, so the colors will last. If the ocean or lake, just a quick rinse for the sand and dirt. Then it should be OK to use a few more times. We always machine wash ours.

If ocean at the right time of year, in the right part of the ocean, sea lice, ugh.