Anyone else? My hair prefers hard water, does not like soft.

[Columbia River]

I read about people and their hair loving soft water. I live in the PNW, where we have a lot of rain AND very soft water. However, my hair just does not like it. It LOVES the hard water found in the desert South West...am I alone in not liking soft water?

[ttverdy]

Sorry! Hard water is bad for my hair, probably because it's coarse and tends to be dry. Also the same for my skin. Hard water makes my eczema much worse, almost immediately from being in it. I'm not really sure why this is, though! I guess different hair/skin types work well with different minerals.

[Bazinga]

I live in an area with rather hard water, but I'm not exactly unhappy with my hair. The next thing I want to try out is washing my hair with demineralized water so than I can compare. I'm curious now if it will make a difference on my hair.

[spidermom]

Well, it might be a matter of getting used to it. Taking care of my hair was different when I visited my father in a hard water area; it would have taken some getting used to, but I didn't have to; I came home to our nice soft water.

[Anje]

My husband prefers his hair with hard water. (His skin, on the other hand, has not been pleased with the water in his new city.) He gets a lot more volume with it than he does with softened water, so much so that he has started using mousse on the weekends when he comes home and has to deal with softened water.

[nobeltonya]

I could do without smelling like a pool from the chlorine in the water, but my shampoo doesn't lather very well with soft water. IDK if it looks better with soft water, because here we have hard water.. and when I lived at home, with soft water, I didn't pay attention to how it behaved b/c I also didn't know how to take care of it. *shrugs*

[Áine]

I didn't know that there were people out there that really do like what hard water does for them. For me, soft water all the way. My scalp, hair and body fare much better without calcium in the water.

[jeanniet]

Calcium in the water = hard water, not soft. :)

I've never washed in soft water long enough to know how my hair likes it, but it's not too crazy about hard water. It's not bad enough to wreck it, but I do get buildup pretty fast if I don't do some kind of rinse. I have well water now, though, which adds its own set of problems. In the past few years through experimentation I've learned what works and we've come to a truce now. :D

[Carolyn]

Hard water is awful on my hair and my skin too. I love my Culligan softener.

[Áine]

Calcium in the water = hard water, not soft. :)


Yes, I know this as I'm always softening my water, but my fingers are not as fast as my brain unfortunately. But it's fixed now. :)

[Columbia River]

It's crazy isn't it, the difference in hair? I have straight, shiny hair and the hard water gives it a volume boost. (I agree, my skin does not like it.)

However my friend and I are taking empty gallon containers to the waterfalls next week, so we can have rinses and spritzes made from it...oh please hair learn to like soft water.

[KwaveT]

I don't think I have ever been able to wash my hair in truly soft water to notice the different. My skin on my hands doesn't like the super hard water that we have now compared to where I use to live.