Polarized Raman spectroscopy, combined with multivariate curve resolution (MCR), is used to measure the influence of dilute alkali halide ions on the OH stretch vibrational band of water. The frequency and integrated intensity of the resulting hydration shell OH bands are found to increase with increasing anion size. Comparisons of results obtained from salt solutions in H2O and HOD/D2O imply that ion-water interactions reduce the influence of resonance coupling on the OH stretch band of H2O. Polarized Raman results indicate that the hydration shell of F- gives rise to a nearly perfectly polarized OH stretch band, while large anions produce, larger depolarization.