PDA

View Full Version : how much damage can be caused by hard water?



darkrose
June 20th, 2011, 11:36 AM
i care for my hair pretty well, its oiled daily, kept up often, theres more i could do but im only a newbie at hair care. but what i find odd is that every weekend i have to get some scissors and cut away all the split ends, about 30 -40 strands!:( i dont understand why im plagued with split ends, it'll never grow to classic lenght in this condition. the only thing i can think of is that the hard water is causing this, but i dont know. do you guys have any ideas? my hair and me will be enternally grateful :)
thank you.

shikara
June 20th, 2011, 09:18 PM
Well I don't know if hard water alone can actually cause the split ends, but it can very easily not be able to fully rinse out shampoo/cond from your hair, thus, not only rather dull, limp, velcroey hair, but more difficult to comb through. To combat hard water, many here rinse after with apple cider vinegar (ACV) diluted with water. That doesn't work for me, so I use lemon juice (1/3 cup in quite a large bowl - I swish my ends around in it a little then pour the rest over my head, let it sit a minute, then rinse out). Apparently, many also find it works better for them if they don't rinse it out. As far as cutting goes, make sure that your scissors is sharp, and best if only used on hair. They don't have to cost much - I got a barber's scissors at Zellers for under $10.

SpeakingEZ
June 20th, 2011, 09:23 PM
If you've only just started to take care of your hair, damage is to be expected. Right now is the time for you to cut away all the damage you've caused before starting to care for it, which will be showing itself through splits and such until the damage is grown out. Remember, it was already there, it's just choosing now to reveal itself.

My hair didn't stop splitting until about a year after coming to LHC, at which point I'd trimmed off about 12". I still have a very damaged section in the back that's making its way down.

Oh, right, and do you know how many hairs there are on your head? 30-40 a week is nothing. That's about 0.05 percent.

Mairéad
June 20th, 2011, 09:41 PM
I agree. Sometimes damage doesn't reveal itself until you remove hair practices that can mask it. Cones and flat ironing could make my hair look amazing but when I stopped doing it my hair looked something crazy and I decided to go for a big chop.

As for hard water, I do filters and ACV rinses. I find hard water can hurt my hair some. I only encounter hard water at college but I'm there about 8 months out of the year.

UltraBella
June 21st, 2011, 12:25 AM
We have REALLY hard water where I live and I haven't found it to be as hard on my hair as I anticipated. With the hard water I have found using a non-SLS shampoo leaves a lot of buildup on my scalp, I use a low SLS with good results. I clarify once a month and conditioner is a toss up - I can't figure out whether I like cones or cone free. Either way, my hair seems pretty happy.