Hard water question

[Hare]

I am on a well and have hard water. Is it worth it to spend the coin to put in a water softener? I'm hesitant because this means, I now have to purchase bottled water because the softener adds sodium and I can not have that in my diet.
I was at a family's cottage a couple of weeks ago, and they have a softener and oh my my! My hair was this gorgeous, bouncy, non-frizz whatsoever hair! I LOVED it!

Thank you

[foreveryours]

Hi there. Don't use shampoo bars or things containing natural soaps (based on carboxylic acids) if you have hard water. The scum with stick to your hair. When I had hard water in Prescott hyears ago, I got by with shampooing normally (shampoos, most of them anyway, sulfates, don't react with the Mg/Ca found in hard water) and then rinsing away any remaining Mg/Ca ions left by the shower water with distilled water. Your sebum contains carboxylic acids which like soap grabs hold of any magnesium it can find and doesn't let go. A gallon of distilled water lasted me 2 washes. I have "soft" water now but I hate it. It makes my skin feel slimy when wet and when it dries, its salt dries my skin and makes it itchy. Can't win.

ETA: you can use KCl (instead of NaCl) if you wish to avoid the sodium to regenerate the resin in your water treatment system but it may be a bit more expensive. A technical grade is fine. Buy it bye the ton and not in cute 40 pound bags at the big box stores

[Hare]

This is most helpful! Thank for that very well thought out response!

[Deborah]

We have hard water too. I found that if I shook about 1/4 cup citric acid powder into a 48-ounce bottle of water and then poured that over my head after completely rinsing and turning the shower off, it helped my hair quite a lot.

[Shorty89]

I think you can buy water filters just for your shower head. That might be a good option.

[Fiorentina]

Spending your hair a good rinse with a gal distilled or purified water is also very helpful. I do it very often and I love it.
This procedure helps me a lot, especially if I am at places where I can not influence or change the water quality. I also find it extremely helpful if the water is heavily chlorinated.
Regards
Fiorentina

[TatsuOni]

We have hard water and I ends every wash with a chelating product frorm NightBlooming and every once in a while I do a proper treatment with it.

https://www.nightblooming.com/produc...crystal-rinse/