Hair Red From Water

[UP Lisa]

Hi. All my life I never thought I had any red in my hair, but there are actually a lot of red undertones in it in natural light. I do have somewhat hard water, so I'm wondering if this red is from my water or if it's the way my hair really is.

I do use a chelating shampoo about every other week. Anyone else ever notice this?

[JenniferNoel]

It is possible, as hard water can deposit minerals in to hair that could contribute to a subtle change in color.
It could also be natural color change...

[dernhelm]

I vaguely recall reading about this somewhere. My ends and length do have a reddish tone to them, but the hair closest to my scalp does not. It is quite noticeable, too, especially when I wear my hair up. I , too, have very hard water where I live. In my case, however, I guess it could be from me growing out a year old dye job, even though I did use a color with an ash undertone.

Which chelating shampoo are you using? I could probably benefit from adding one to my routine.

[Arctic]

Iron in water can give hair a reddish colour as well as make it dry and brittle.

There are huge differencies between chelating shampoos, I used one (Finnish brand) but it was unable to remove minerals from my hair. Ascorbic acid rinses turned out to be the best thing ever happened to my hair since joining here, giving me my soft hair back :D

[Iara]

Do you have alot of iron in your water? I had a friend with pale blonde hair that was on well water and she often complained about getting red tones in her hair from the water.

[suicides_eve]

oh yea, hard water can deff cause that. I remember when i was bleach blonde but the hard water turned me into strawberry blonde within a month!! Simple fix was to get a shower head filter. I got my from home depot online for $20 and loved the results!

[UP Lisa]

I use Kenra chelating shampoo.

[Longlocks3]

Well cooper and iron is pretty much everywhere in the UP of MI! I wouldn't be surprised if that did contribute to reddish hair tones.

Have you thought about doing AVC, either without rinsing it out or rinsing it out with distilled water? I'd do a trial of a couple weeks to see if there was any difference though, since distilled water could get pricey after a while!

Just my :twocents:

[beez1717]

sigh. it's good to know that hard water really doesn't do much good for your hair. No wonder whenever I come home from college, my hair seems to get healthier right away. I might have to start using my filtered water so I don't get as bad results... sigh....

[coscass]

I think it might be. My hair is naturally brown, but I do colour it red. Back when I was in beauty school, I had the red taken out, and my teachers all told me my hair went red without dye because of the water.

[UP Lisa]

Well, I actually don't mind the red. And my hair is not at all dry or brittle. Seems perfectly healthy and soft.