When it comes to moisturizing your hair, water is your best friend, right? Well… here’s the thing, it can also be your worst enemy. WHAT?! Yes, tap water is not good for your hair and I’m going to tell you why. Tap water, is full of minerals and/or Chlorine, which can be damaging to those hair strands over time.
Depending on which state you live in, the amount of chlorine and minerals differ. In the USA, states that are known for hard water are Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Cali, Kansas, etc.
The softest water states are New York, Washington State, Oregon, Virginia, Colorado, Arkansas, and so on. If you are among the hard water states, or if you just rather be safe than sorry, there are some inexpensive ways to beat this tap water issue.
1. Invest in a shower head filter*
Most of us wash our hair in the shower, so this is definitely the way to go. Shower head filters filter out any overbearing minerals and magnesium* before it leaves your shower head to steal, kill, and destroy your hair and skin. A shower head filter can range in cost anywhere from $20-$200, well worth it for softer water.
If you’re among those who wash your hair in the sink, faucet filters are available for purchase as well.
How do I know if the shower head filter* I purchased is effective? Glad you asked!
First of all hard water only lathers soaps and shampoos moderately. Nice, soft water cleans your hair way more due to the generous suds it helps to produce, and we know the more suds, the more clean our hair and skin will be. The shower head or faucet filter is a simple fix.
2. Use distilled water
We all know that water is our hair’s best friend when it comes to moisturizing it, so when it’s time to spray your hair with water, pour some distilled water into your spray bottle instead of running to the sink to fill it. Even after washing your hair in plain tap water, you can do your last rinse with distilled water.
Will do mk the rose water!!–got roses in the garden!!
It’s great! I use the shop bought version to make my homemade concoctions smell lovely!
I am definitely going to try this. I do love this blogsite. I get so much great info and advice. Keep up the great work!!
This is such a right on time post. I recently moved to Kenya from Kansas and I’ve been having the hardest time figuring out why my hair is acting up. Where I live we don’t drink the tap water because it has high concentrations of iodine in it. I wash my hair in the water though, never thought anything of it. But recently I’ve noticed that my hair dries out fast, and it’s just not taking products well. I think it might be the water, but I’m not sure. My husband isn’t too keen on the fact that I want to use distilled water on my hair because we can’t afford it (I wash my hair too often and I have a lot of hair), but ACV rinses might work. I used to do them in the States and my hair liked them. I’ll just have to see where I can find some here! Do you think boiling water would help? This is a pretty long winded post, but for real, I’ve been thinking about how to combat the water issue and this really helped me. Thanks!
The one thing I don’t have to worry about here… our water is so soft until soap bubbles in the soap dish just sitting next to a turned on faucet. What we have to worry about is rinsing. Because everything suds so easy in our soft water you have to rinse forever to get all the suds off your body and out of your hair.
There is only ONE thing that I disagree about this post. It’s the fact that the more suds you see means that your hair is cleaner. I thought that we natural ladies had debunked that myth with the rise in co-washing, mud washes, etc. Just because you see a ton of suds doesn’t mean that your hair is cleaner. It might means that it’s DRYER, not cleaner. I don’t agree with washing your hair with regular conditioner, though. But if we truly believed that suds were what made our hair cleaner, then no one would doing these light co-washes that have a small amount of suds. Just saying.
Everything else is on point, however! I used to use distilled water on my hair until I could no longer afford it, as one person above mentioned. lol