I just wanted to say that I added borax to my pool last night along with the requisite muriatic acid and I must say that my hair today, post pool, was remarkably smooth, easily as good as after a shower. We had a pool party with several kids and their parents over and I wanted the pool perfect. I was pleasantly surprised with how gentle the water seemed on my hair and eyes, definitely helped make the party a success. Smoked jerky and burgers didn't hurt either 
Can't say the water looked any better than usual (usually looks perfect) but it sure as heck was easy on the hair and skin, even with more chlorine than usual (4-5 ppm with CYA at 30). I usually keep the chlorine a bit lower than I probably should but I've never had anything other than a crystal clear pool. I used the pool calculator on this forum to figure out how much to add. I added 8 boxes of borax (608 oz) which is enough to get me to 51 ppm if my pool is 10k gal and 43 ppm if it is 12k gal. It's somewhere in that range I think. I put in 2 gal of muriatic acid and then a bit more from a 3rd jug I had laying around, the PH came out spot on perfect. I added 1 jug acid, then half the borax and then brushed the pool. Then I repeated and ran the pump for another couple hours last night. This morning it was just perfect.
Bottom line, based on how not nasty my hair felt after hours in the pool I'd recommend borax even if it did nothing else for the pool (i.e. buffer ph, stop algae). For all the money I've spent on this stupid pool, this was the best 40 or so dollars I have spent by far.
Can't say the water looked any better than usual (usually looks perfect) but it sure as heck was easy on the hair and skin, even with more chlorine than usual (4-5 ppm with CYA at 30). I usually keep the chlorine a bit lower than I probably should but I've never had anything other than a crystal clear pool. I used the pool calculator on this forum to figure out how much to add. I added 8 boxes of borax (608 oz) which is enough to get me to 51 ppm if my pool is 10k gal and 43 ppm if it is 12k gal. It's somewhere in that range I think. I put in 2 gal of muriatic acid and then a bit more from a 3rd jug I had laying around, the PH came out spot on perfect. I added 1 jug acid, then half the borax and then brushed the pool. Then I repeated and ran the pump for another couple hours last night. This morning it was just perfect.Bottom line, based on how not nasty my hair felt after hours in the pool I'd recommend borax even if it did nothing else for the pool (i.e. buffer ph, stop algae). For all the money I've spent on this stupid pool, this was the best 40 or so dollars I have spent by far.