Hard water waxiness - how to get rid of it

**mira-chan** · March 5th, 2018, 10:34 PM

Originally Posted by lapushka

Could they possibly sell EDTA as a powder? So you could dissolve it in water and rinse (and perhaps scritch) your hair with it.

Originally Posted by ReptilianFeline

Lapushka - I wish! But I think it's one of those things that are only sold to industries... however, I will look for it.

BTW - lactic acid can be bought from shops that seel supplies to home brewers (beer). Crearome also make lactic acid in bottles. It is however very strong. Foot warts can be removed with a lactic acid mix sold in the pharmacy, and that will disolve the skin a little.

It is sold! We have it in lab. I know where to buy it. I don't remember the ordering process requiring it be shipped only to labs, or anything special for something equivalent to EDTA. More hazardous things required more of a check on things, sure.

BUT... Unless you know exactly what percentage you need or how to mix an acid solution safely, I'd suggest not playing around with powdered EDTA. The SDS sheet has handling precautions. It's not the most hazardous thing out there but when at powder concentration it need more caution than citric acid and such.

I could probably research the percent concentration needed and calculate an amount to dilute, but unless you are trained in chemical safety, or have mixed your own lye from powder for soap making, safely! (... which means you know how to mix bases and acids). I wouldn't recommend dabbling in this too much.

**Obsidian** · March 6th, 2018, 04:46 AM

You can get EDTA on Amazon or eBay, no problem to buy it.
I've used straight vinegar before, soaked my hair and left it in for 10 minutes to break up the minerals

**Wendyp** · March 6th, 2018, 06:13 AM

We’re having a water softener put in, the guy is coming out today to test our water. I used ACV last wash (Sunday) and I can’t believe the difference in my hair! I think my water has been destroying my length. Amazing how something so simple can have such a huge effect.

**Ligeia Noire** · March 6th, 2018, 06:29 AM

We have hard water here too but since we tried the shower head filter. I just needed a good chelating shampoo to get rid of the build up and now I only use the acv rinses to keep the minerals at bay. I would use the shampoo only once as I think using the chemical powder without proper knowledge might be too dangerous and then use the mixing you are trying every time you wash to not let them build up again. If your water is that hard I don't know how you could get totally rid of all the stuff without the chemical coumpound.

**lapushka** · March 6th, 2018, 06:29 AM

You guys must have some hard water then!

Here it is regulated over the entire country and divided into levels 1 through 5, I think. 5 being the harshest (which is our region). I've never known anything else.

**Chromis** · March 6th, 2018, 07:15 AM

Originally Posted by lapushka

You guys must have some hard water then!

Here it is regulated over the entire country and divided into levels 1 through 5, I think. 5 being the harshest (which is our region). I've never known anything else.

The pH scale is logarithmic. Each step in whole number is 10x the one before; thus, 8 and 8.6 are both hard, but 8.6 is actually quite harder! (Brussels and Antwerp both appear to generally be 8 ) And of course there is also the mineral content, because as I said above, it is not only hardness that determines how your water is going to behave. Our Calcium is at a whopping 154 and alkalinity of 352. To give a couple large cities in Belgium, Brussels is listed as 119 for Calcium and 322 alkalinity and Antwerp is at 90 and 76. Quite some differences! Meanwhile, Portland also has a pH of 8, but the calcium is wayyyyyy low at 2 and alkalinity at 10 as I will explain. Their water though, is going to act much differently than yours or mine!

For the curious. The best way is to look up your regional water district or other government body if you are on a municipal system so you can get a full report. It is fascinating stuff! For example, in Portland, Oregon they actually make the water harder because it is too soft from the source! There is naturally occurring lead in the water there and lead is more soluble in soft water, so hardening it binds the lead. (So you see, soft water is not automatically best!) If you are on a well, you probably already need to to test anyhow, so just look at the well report.

If you want a rough idea, this page has a super long list from cities around the world about stats that they use in brewing, which happen to also be what we are looking for: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/water-profiles/

This can matter for more than just hair. As I have mentioned, with a lot of minerals in the water it is very healthy for drinking, but will do terrible things to your pipes and appliances. It sometimes has strange effects elsewhere too. I grow heirloom tomatoes because of our soil's very high magnesium content. Even though there is plenty of calcium, the plants have trouble absorbing it and get blossom endrot if I grow modern quicker hybrids. You see, calcium and magnesium bind to the same receptor. Blossom endrot is caused by the plant not being able to uptake enough calcium. This is over caused by not enough in the soil or uneven watering. Here meanwhile, it is caused by the plant basically getting jammed up with magnesium. If I grow slower growing varieties, they are able to get enough meanwhile.

The brewers of the board can likely explain this all better. I know for gardening and fishkeeping.

**ReptilianFeline** · March 6th, 2018, 07:29 AM

I think I'll stay away from EDTA unless I have a specific recipe to work with. I love chemistry, but it's one thing to mix and test in test tubes in a lab, a whole different beast to play around with at home.

Now that my hair is fully dry, I can say that some of the waxiness on top of my head is gone, but I will need more and stronger rinses to make it go away.

As for shower heads... I've read that they are moslty a gimmik... there isn't enough time for the water to have the minerals remove just by running it through the shower head. I wish it worked though!

BTW - some people have their own well and hard water. Is there a simple test to do? I know aquarium shops have tests for pH and so on. Do they also carry test for hardness, or is that the brewery friends that keep those?

**Chromis** · March 6th, 2018, 08:34 AM

All the aquarium shops I have ever been in have had the hardness tests too, but I have never been in any Swedish ones to know if that is true across the pond

We have some pretty detailed threads about the shower filters kicking around here somewhere if you do a search. I am on my phone distracted by quail right now. The short answer is yes and no and it depends!

**lapushka** · March 6th, 2018, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by Chromis

The pH scale is logarithmic. Each step in whole number is 10x the one before; thus, 8 and 8.6 are both hard, but 8.6 is actually quite harder! (Brussels and Antwerp both appear to generally be 8 ) And of course there is also the mineral content, because as I said above, it is not only hardness that determines how your water is going to behave. Our Calcium is at a whopping 154 and alkalinity of 352. To give a couple large cities in Belgium, Brussels is listed as 119 for Calcium and 322 alkalinity and Antwerp is at 90 and 76. Quite some differences! Meanwhile, Portland also has a pH of 8, but the calcium is wayyyyyy low at 2 and alkalinity at 10 as I will explain. Their water though, is going to act much differently than yours or mine!

For the curious. The best way is to look up your regional water district or other government body if you are on a municipal system so you can get a full report. It is fascinating stuff! For example, in Portland, Oregon they actually make the water harder because it is too soft from the source! There is naturally occurring lead in the water there and lead is more soluble in soft water, so hardening it binds the lead. (So you see, soft water is not automatically best!) If you are on a well, you probably already need to to test anyhow, so just look at the well report.

If you want a rough idea, this page has a super long list from cities around the world about stats that they use in brewing, which happen to also be what we are looking for: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/water-profiles/

This can matter for more than just hair. As I have mentioned, with a lot of minerals in the water it is very healthy for drinking, but will do terrible things to your pipes and appliances. It sometimes has strange effects elsewhere too. I grow heirloom tomatoes because of our soil's very high magnesium content. Even though there is plenty of calcium, the plants have trouble absorbing it and get blossom endrot if I grow modern quicker hybrids. You see, calcium and magnesium bind to the same receptor. Blossom endrot is caused by the plant not being able to uptake enough calcium. This is over caused by not enough in the soil or uneven watering. Here meanwhile, it is caused by the plant basically getting jammed up with magnesium. If I grow slower growing varieties, they are able to get enough meanwhile.

The brewers of the board can likely explain this all better. I know for gardening and fishkeeping.

Chromis, the 1-5 is just to denote the hardness of the water, it's not the pH scale.

It's how they used to (I say "used to") divide the regions. This might have been a long time ago. This is how it is now (should have maybe looked into that).

https://www.aquaflanders.be/mijn-waterhardheid.aspx

No. I'm right there are 5 categories:
very soft
soft
medium hard
hard
very hard

That was the number I was referring to.

**MusicalSpoons** · March 6th, 2018, 12:39 PM

Chromis, this is awesome information - I looked up ours last night and converted it, our gpg is approximately 18 (CaCO3 324 mg/l). So, hard enough to form scum around anything that touches the water, but not a complete pain and needing to wash everything twice. It may well be worth trying miracle water though, thanks for posting the recipe ReptilianFeline. Certainly would be much less harsh on the hair than chelating or even a thorough clarifying wash.

Originally Posted by lapushka

Chromis, the 1-5 is just to denote the hardness of the water, it's not the pH scale.

It's how they used to (I say "used to") divide the regions. This might have been a long time ago. This is how it is now (should have maybe looked into that).

https://www.aquaflanders.be/mijn-waterhardheid.aspx

No. I'm right there are 5 categories:
very soft
soft
medium hard
hard
very hard

That was the number I was referring to.

With the degrees given there you can convert to find out what the Calcium content is (mg/l) and the alkalinity - the Calcium carbonate content (mg/l), and compare internationally. [I'd do it myself but the brainpower has run out for tonight.] Wikipedia has a handy 'every unit used in measuring water hardness' conversion table.

(The report for our water - Calcium 129.6 mg/l, Calcium carbonate 324 mg/l - says it's 32.40°F, or 18.403°dH. So ours would only be classed as 'hard' by the Belgian classification table. The gpg calculations I did last night, if I calculated ours correctly, tell me that Chromis' water is about twice as hard.)