How Water Hardness Affects Your Hair

We’ve covered a lot on this blog about the sorts of things that can affect the quality of your hair – heat, products, icy temperatures, even your pillowcase – but did you know that the minerals in the water you wash your hair with can potentially be the most damaging of them all? To understand how, we’re going to give a (small and basic) science lesson behind water hardness and how it might leave your hair looking and feeling dull, dry and brittle.

So what is hard water?

If you’re struggling to understand the concept of how water can actually be “hard” (it’s a liquid, after all), don’t let the term confuse you. Water hardness actually refers to how many hard-causing minerals, namely calcium and magnesium, water contains. These minerals are found in all water sources around the world, and are pretty good for you.

We need magnesium and calcium for healthy bones and muscles, as well as to prevent the risk of disorders like high blood pressure and diabetes. But when it comes to showering in water containing a high calcium and magnesium content, those benefits aren’t relevant.

The level of water hardness varies around the country, depending on your water source. You’ll be able to find out the hardness of your water by testing it using a fancy device called a soap test kit, or requesting a water quality report from your water provider.

Because hard water doesn’t lather well, you can also test hardness by filling a water bottle half-full with water and a drop of liquid soap, then shaking (the bottle, not yourself) for about a minute. If the water is clear with a layer of bubbles on the surface, it’s relatively soft. If it’s milky or cloudy with very little bubbles, you’ve got harder water.

Why is hard water bad for hair?

Most people hate hard water because it creates limescale – that’s that ugly white coating you’ll see on the inside of your kettle and dishwasher. But hard water also mixes really poorly with soap, meaning that when you’re trying to get a good lather with your shampoo, it’ll be so much more difficult with water containing a high magnesium and calcium content.

Obviously, you need water to shampoo your hair, and hard water can alter the texture of your hair after you’ve washed it. Every hair shaft is made up of tiny little scales, and when you wash your hair with hard water, it causes the scales to stick out, making hair feel coarse and knotty. This also makes it more difficult to wash the shampoo out of your hair once you’ve finished attempting to lather.

Here’s the science behind it

Skip this part if you’re not here for the in-depth science lesson. Shampoo essentially doesn’t work as well in hard water because it reacts with the calcium and magnesium minerals to create salts, which aren’t easily soluble (think limescale) and end up forming a nasty sort of film. Soft water is far kinder to your hair, because you’ll actually be able to lather it, and it’ll leave fewer salt deposits behind.

How can you get a better wash?

First off, we should make it clear that there’s nothing actually dangerous or seriously damaging about hard water. It’s good for us if we drink it – it’s just annoying when it comes to cleaning and styling your hair. But if you’re bothered enough about your hard water to do something about it, you can purchase a water softening shower head, which does some fancy things to remove the calcium and magnesium minerals from water before it comes out of your shower.

If you don’t actually know how hard your water is, you’ll need to find that out first.  You can do a quick Google search of water hardness by area if you’re feeling too lazy to test the hardness of your specific incoming household water.

While it’s definitely not essential that you do anything about your water hardness, if you’ve tried everything to treat your dry, frazzled hair and nothing seems to make a difference, chances are, your water is to blame. And if you want to add moisture to your hair and give it a helping hand in faster growth, showering in softer water might be your easiest solution.  

Image credit: www.thehealthy.com