Something interesting happened, and I wanted to share :)

[Upside Down]

Normally I wash my hair once a week.
Well, two weeks ago my boyfriend and I went to a lake that is pretty far from polluted big cities to swim and camp. We got caught in a storm and since our car was already next to the lake which meant that we would have to go through a dirt (at that point MUD) road to the mainroad, we decided to make the most of our day, and went swimming in the rain the whole afternoon... it was great, a real fairy tale day.

But another great thing that came out of it is that I did not wash my hair when we came back as it felt clean, didn't wash it the next weekend, and only remembered that maybe I shoud somewhere between wednesday and thursday last week. I finally washed yesterday, and well, it was greacy, but not any more greacy than it would normally be after a week - and it has been two weaks.

I know we have very hard water here, but I am still a bit puzzled because washing with destilled water never really did anything for my hair. I guess rain is a bit acidic as well. Ah, can't wait to go on another camping trip to the lake and not wash my hair for weeks after :cheese:

[jera]

Actually rain water is supposed to be good for hair. Maybe that caused the results you saw. :)

[mali]

It would be a fairy tale to find out that no one has greasy hair,it was the just water that was hard and was stripping hair from it's natural oils!:crush: Sigh,we can't all go to the lake and sink our hair in it.Even though I wish...The only thing we are bound to do is suffer...Okay,I'm beeing too poetic,haha!:pI heard this thing about hair beeing a lot nicer after beeing washed with rain water.And I heard it works and if it worked for you,i'm happy!:eyebrows::):)

[Upside Down]

Yeap, it would be a fairy tale if we could wash hair once in a couple of weeks and look nice :)
The rainwater seems to be great, boyfriends hair was amazingly soft after and he didn't wash for two weeks after either (forgot to mention that).

Unfortunatly we live in the capital, a bih and polluted city, and I would not want to wash my hair with rainwater collected on my balcony here :)

[melikai]

Yeap, it would be a fairy tale if we could wash hair once in a couple of weeks and look nice :)
The rainwater seems to be great, boyfriends hair was amazingly soft after and he didn't wash for two weeks after either (forgot to mention that).

Unfortunatly we live in the capital, a bih and polluted city, and I would not want to wash my hair with rainwater collected on my balcony here :)

Ah damn, that's what I was going to suggest!

I've started doing WO every second wash (I also normally wash every week), but maybe I'll start using my collected rainwater for that! :)

[Jenn of Pence]

We just set up a rain barrel at our house, but I don't think I'll be sticking my head in! Although I will definitely be looking for a cool mountain stream the next time I go hiking!

[Upside Down]

Ah damn, that's what I was going to suggest!

I've started doing WO every second wash (I also normally wash every week), but maybe I'll start using my collected rainwater for that! :)

Well, if I remember correctly, you live in Niš, your rainwater is waaay better than mine in Belgrade :)

[melikai]

Well, if I remember correctly, you live in Niš, your rainwater is waaay better than mine in Belgrade :)

Kragujevac, so...debateable. ;)

However, I just remembered a great and easy way to purify water - just add a few chunks of wood charcoal! You add it directly to the water, leave it for 30 minutes or more if you want, and it gets rid of all the toxins and bacteria. I'm doing this with mine! :)

[bumblebums]

Rain water is softer than your municipal tap water, so it would be better for that reason alone. Hard water leaves salt deposits on pretty much everything, including hair.

But, I suspect that another factor is pH. Rain water can be more acidic than regular water. So you might have inadvertently chelated the salt deposits out of your hair that day.

If you want to re-create the effect with city water, you could try boiling and cooling off some water for the final rinse--boiling softens water. And add a tablespoon of vinegar to it--vinegar can remove some of the salt crystals that make your hair manky.

[Upside Down]

Kragujevac, so...debateable. ;)

However, I just remembered a great and easy way to purify water - just add a few chunks of wood charcoal! You add it directly to the water, leave it for 30 minutes or more if you want, and it gets rid of all the toxins and bacteria. I'm doing this with mine! :)

Oh, my mistake :)

Really? Charcoal? I was thinking about experimenting with zeolite, but I'll try this first instead :) thanks!


Rain water is softer than your municipal tap water, so it would be better for that reason alone. Hard water leaves salt deposits on pretty much everything, including hair.

But, I suspect that another factor is pH. Rain water can be more acidic than regular water. So you might have inadvertently chelated the salt deposits out of your hair that day.

If you want to re-create the effect with city water, you could try boiling and cooling off some water for the final rinse--boiling softens water. And add a tablespoon of vinegar to it--vinegar can remove some of the salt crystals that make your hair manky.

Oh, I've tried vinegar rinses, though they make my hair softer, I could never streatch washes to two weeks... I guess rainwater has more to it than I was taking into account. :)

[Gypsygirl]

My grandmother used to do rainwater rinses. Maybe I should try that! Glad you had a magical time! :)

[Upside Down]

OK, I am now thinking this is more of a summer pattern maybe.
Last weekend I hennaed and thought I would wash after henna, but as I was hennaing at a friends place I just rinsed with water, I didn't feel like washing my hair when I got home, as it was late. I just air dried it.

Didn't comb it till yesterday, wore it up all the time, now it's in a french braid still looking NOT greacy... and two days from now it will be 2 weeks since I washed.

I know I had a water rinse, but believe me, that never did get the sebum out before.
I am starting to look at this more closely, maybe it is because I didn't brush it oooor maybe I should clarify more often...? Because washing once in two weeks is faaan-tas-tic.
My scalp is definetly producing less sebum! :)

[LittleRainbow]

Hi all of you :)
First, really interesting tread going on here. I just read about rainwater in another tread before I got here. Definitely going to try that out. And just about a few hours ago, I got home from swiming happely around in a lake nearby. My hair is dry and at the moment unusually curly. Live in a small town so not much polution going on here (thank god for that!)

Now to the point. Someone mentioned that ph can make a difference here. So I have to chare.
A friend of mine just got a machine that can transform "normal water" to water with ph 7 - 9. And the machine can also make sour water. Now, the sour water is used as bacterial killer, in japan, they use it in hospitals instead of alcohol to clean their hands! They also use it in the garden to kill pests. And to clean floors... :p

I think there's a connection. The sour water from this machine is probably way to rough for your hair, And you don't want to drink it either!! But a small amount of sour-ness, I think, can cleanse quite well!

The machine is called Kangen. If you want to read more (about the water or about kangen) go to:http://www.aboutkangenwater.com/

Didn't mean to sell anything, just thought you might like the info :cheer:

[Drynwhyl]

What lake exactly was this?
*ponders*
:D

[melikai]

What lake exactly was this?
*ponders*
:D

LOL! It's going to become our hair Mecca. :p

I washed my hair shortly after I first read about Upside Down's experience, but my hair was rather limp and looked over-conditioned. :(
I have better luck with (harder) tap water. However, the mental/spiritual experience of washing with rainwater was very profound for me, so I might try to use rainwater to shampoo with, and see how that goes.

[Drynwhyl]

Haha yeah, I'm imagining a LHC meet over there xD

Rain usually does wonders for my hair, unfortunately I don't have any now.