Does soft water help or hinder?

[Debra83]

Just got back from a weekend down in Langley, B.C. - and the hotel where we were staying had soft water. While my hair was really soft....I found I had to use more leave in afterwards. Does anyone else notice a difference when switching?

[Linda K]

Depending on the hardness of your water, you might have noticed the difference because of mineral build-up in your hair. What purpose is the leave-in? Control? Detangle?

I need more for detangling when the softener salt has been forgotten and the dishwasher doesn't clean as well either. When I have it removed in the salon (Malibu treatments) my hair is softer and dries much quicker and actually grew past shoulder length because it also took care of the velcro ends. Just my :twocents::?

[Debra83]

Interesting. I had to use more leave in for frizz control after using the soft water. But, I also didn't have my regular leave in with me, come to think of it, so maybe that was what the problem was, and not the soft water after all.

[Tangles]

Very soft water makes my hair flat and wispy. Hard water gives me buildup, but it's easier IMO to remove buildup than to add some substance to hair.

[Shiva]

I don't think I have ever really used soft water, but I have used hard water... I think the best water is Nothing Water (neither hard or soft). I've heard people have a whole new set of issues with soft water (soft water, from what I heard, seems to be hard to rinse out conditioners, etc).

My skin and hair love the filtered (Nothing Water) that comes out of my aquasana shower filter... best investment ($86.) I ever made and of course I will have to buy replacement filters every 6 months, but that's really not so bad a deal.

[Melisande]

At home, I have extremely hard water - even a tiny drop of water on the sink leaves a calcium crater. I'm used to it by now and rinse with citric acid. At my mother's house where I usually spend part of the holidays, they have very soft water. My hair turns into a limpy, clumpy something and I have to wash every other day, otherwise it looks horrible. I switch to hair soap when I'm there. It adds a bit of volume.

But I prefer the tough love I get from my water at home ;-)

[Carolyn]

I have hard water and hate it. I think the minerals give me reddish or golden hues that I don't want. I fight that all the time with blue S & C's. Soft water means ease of detangling for me. I use a lot more conditioner with hard water. I'll take nice soft water over hard any day.

[pepperminttea]

I have hard water at home, soft water at uni. I don't really notice much of a difference (I voted cheese), but it may be that I've just gotten used to the switching between hard and soft.

[florenonite]

I voted cheese. My hair can be more prone to greasies when I first switch to soft, but then when I go back to hard the 'poo bars don't like it as much :shrug:

[BranwenWolf]

I'm more used to living with hard water, honestly.

My hair feels cruddier and tangles easier with soft water and I seem to shed more.
Lest you think I'm getting them confused- the place where my hair was cruddiest (apartment complex that softened the water) had the soft water trademark: it took me FOREVER to get the shampoo suds out. The tap water also tasted like soap to drink.

When we first moved to Colorado my skin was pretty itchy from the hard water, but at the soft water places I had so much acne it wasn't even funny.
I would say water at my parent's house is liquid rock. I've been in other hard water areas- some pages remark that plains states and the Southwest have hard water.


Maybe it's just what people are used to.

[Iylivarae]

I think I like hard water more. When I was in holidays last winter, the soft water made my hair absolutely impossible to comb, even when I used more conditioner than I do here. I had to leave my hair braided all week, I would have ripped out half of my hair if I tried to really comb it...

[kimannabella]

Anytime I end up staying someplace with hard water my hair is reduced to a frizzy, brittle mess.
And my skin gets really itchy from it.

[Thinthondiel]

I'm doing WO, and soft water is definitely better for me. Hard water makes my hair look dirty and limp. >.<
If I were to move someplace where the water's very hard, I'd have to start shampooing again.

[Kris Dove]

I have fine, thin hair that's prone to the greasies, so soft water is a hindrance. Unfortunately I live in Scotland, land of the soft water!

And the cold makes me blowdry. I seriously need to move somewhere hot with hard water so I can have nice hair, lol!

[pelicano]

I have fine, thin hair that's prone to the greasies, so soft water is a hindrance. Unfortunately I live in Scotland, land of the soft water!

And the cold makes me blowdry. I seriously need to move somewhere hot with hard water so I can have nice hair, lol!

We should swap locations - I'm in the South East, land of the rock hard water! :D

[Brat]

I much prefer soft. I can tell when our softener runs out of salt!