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pinchbeck
October 17th, 2009, 11:27 AM
Have you used rain water exclusively to wash your hair in a hard water area? If so, what have been your results and for how long have you had this luxury?

linda g
October 17th, 2009, 01:41 PM
I have hard water now, and I never thought of it... now I am remembering that is what my grandmother always used to do when they lived out on a farm with very hard well water (that smelled a little bit sulphur-y).

Flynn
October 17th, 2009, 04:40 PM
I've lived, albeit briefly, just outside the city in an area without town water, so all our water was rainwater -- washing, drinking, for the garden, the whole lot.

I felt no difference between this and the Sydney town water I'm more used to; Sydney water is fairly soft (and I'm sure it is softer out where I normally live, too -- basically, the furthest point away from Warragambah Dam which is still on Sydney water.)

The only thing to look out for is if you get long periods without any rainfall. When your tanks start to run down, your water often gets very brown and a little smelly -- to the point that it looks like black tea, even. I noticed no problems with this for washing myself or my hair, but we had to use a different detergent (one of those "Oxy-Action" ones), and more of it than usual, to keep white things from getting stained. My boyfriend even drank the water from the end of the tank with no ill-effects, but his stomach is tougher than mine. (I bought a big drum of drinking water as soon as the tank water started to come out yellowish...)

But, yeah. Rainwater is great for washing. It's just like any other soft water. And if you like to shower for as long as I do (only if you're not relying on those tanks for all your water!) switching to rainwater to shower, and maybe also do your laundry, should reduce your water bill to save you the value of the tanks pretty quickly!

Coriander
October 17th, 2009, 05:05 PM
What's rain? ;)

We've had maybe a drizzle over the past several months. Never enough to really capture it. I love the idea, though!

skay
October 17th, 2009, 08:04 PM
When I was in high school, I remember discovering that rain water made my hair feel soft.

So, I tried to use rain water then next few days and on and off in the future when I remembered. But because the rain was not consistent, I eventually thought it too much work and stopped gathering the rain water.

I don't know if the regular water was hard or not though. I imagine it was normal, but I 'm not sure.

Aer
October 17th, 2009, 11:46 PM
I don't have hard water now, but I've tried rain water, a couple of times. Once I collected some, and used it, but my best experience was when the plumbing busted completely at my old house one summer. It was a stormy week, complete with thunder. My hair felt pretty gross, so in my desperation, I wondered to the corner of the back part of my property, where there was a thick grove of walnut and dogwood, away from the eyes of my not so near neighbors (rural area). The rain was coming down in those thick bullet shaped drops, warm and soothing. I washed up right there, and scrubbing my scalp a little more thorough than usual. I didn't use conditioner because you can't really time how long the rain will decide to help you out in these situations. I didn't need it. My hair and skin really benefited from that storm. I was sad when the storms finally made their way to wherever after two weeks.


Sorry for the rambling!

KiwiLiz
October 18th, 2009, 01:28 AM
Melbourne's water is s'posed to be pretty soft, but I notice a difference when I wash my hair at my BF's mum's home 5 hours to the north-west. It makes my hair unmanageable, it almost feels sticky.

RancheroTheBee
October 18th, 2009, 01:44 AM
:lol: It was actually melted snow. Same diff. But it works really well! My father bought a huge barrel specifically to get rainwater to wash our hair with.