Treating and Preventing Hard Water Buildup On Hair

In this article, you’ll learn and discover how to treat and prevent hard water buildup on hair.

Hair is the crowning glory, one of the easily seen physical features of man and woman. While a lot of care goes into hair styling, coloring, and maintaining, one of the most important aspects is the type of water available in your home. Many homes rely on water sources that are not the best for your hair. Before you learn a few tips on what you can do to fight the effects of hard water on your hair, it is important to understand why you need to do something about it.

Hard water is the most natural type of water and the closest thing to drinking rainfall. Before it reaches your tap, the water seeps through the ground where it is filtered by stones and mineral deposits. These make the water hard.

Hard water sources are generally common for most areas, making it necessary to look at practical and proven methods of hair treatment in well water areas.  When whole areas face this issue, it is a lot more difficult to change residence. And there really is no assurance that the new area chosen for relocation will offer soft water supply always.  Bottom-line – look for a simple and effective solution to combat the effects of damage to hair as a result of hard water usage.

What does hard water do your hair?

To begin with, hard water is water loaded with minerals. Now obviously you’ve read somewhere that minerals are good. Not ALL minerals are good, and even what is good, needs to be in moderate quantities. When we say hard water, we mean water with very levels of minerals. This will have an effect of leaving your hair lackluster, in addition to stripping your hair of natural oils that your hair gets. Your hair will be dry, and the single biggest fallout of dry hair is hair that is difficult to brush and present in a tidy manner. You really will not find it easy to experiment with new hairdos, when your hair does not co-operate with your efforts.

What can you do about it?

You could try out three different methods to solve this problem – you could use a homemade solution to neutralize the effects of hard water that builds up in your hair, you could install a pricey shower filter, or you could opt for a good chelating shampoo.

Homemade Solution

A homemade solution can help to neutralize the effects of hard water buildup. But to do that you need to source the right quality of ingredients, and you need to take the time to do it. It needs to be a part of your routine and is not a one-off method, that will take care of it all the time. Ideally, homemade solutions are acidic substances that will strip the buildup on your hair – you could opt for a lemon juice rinse of your hair or vinegar. It is important to only use the diluted rinse and not very strong rinses because overkill through strong solutions can cause its own damage to your hair in a different way.

Installing A Shower Filter

This will considerably reduce the effects of hard water on your hair but needs to be part of a combination of methods to get your locks to bounce back. A showerhead filter is more like your potable water filter – it restores pH balance, keeps the chemicals that cause the damage out of your hair and effectively lets only purified water to pass through. If you are ready to afford one, with possible replacements in the future – yes, it has a fixed life – which means it needs to be replaced periodically, you can have one installed in place of your existing showerhead. And you need to use a good conditioner to support this. Conditioners have slightly varying results for different people, hence it is a good idea to try out a few conditioners before you get the best one.

Chelating Shampoo

Chelates are catalysts and effectively bond to metal ions and remove them. A chelating shampoo will stick to the minerals that build up in your hair and wash away by the shampooing action of the suds. Here, the use of the shampoo needs to restricted to four times in a month. This is because of the action followed by the shampoo. Excessive use (read regular, daily) can cause damage to the hair that is equal to the effects of hard water. However, if used as directed, you can get the bounce, the luster, and glamor back into your hair quickly and easily.

Do you have any tips on beating hard water hair? We’d love to hear them. Comment below and let us know!