If you can't co-wash, it might be the water

heidi · 11-06-2011, 06:35 PM

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted but I still lurk.

I had my routine down to a science for a year, perfect results every day. Then we sold our house and moved across town and everything changed. I can't CO-wash anymore

. It just leaves my hair limp and stringy. My favorite mousse doesn't work either. It's amazing how much just changing the water effects the way products work.

We will be moving again next week (this was just a temp rental until our house was ready) and now I'm wondering how the well water will change my new routine. I'll probably have to figure things out all over again.

This experiance made me think that one reason co-washing and product recs don't always work out, even with like properties, could be the water...

Jas76 · 11-06-2011, 06:53 PM

I definitely think you are right! I know I have some conditioners that others claim have a ton of slip, but I don't have much with them. And then in different water, my hair behaves totally differently!

I have hard water where I am, and if I'm in softened water it makes a big difference!

IAgirl · 11-07-2011, 08:40 AM

Hi Heidi! Do you know what was different about the water? Some municipal water treatment facilities have websites with all the info from water testing there - including hardness, alkalinity, chlorination etc. Also the source for the different parts of town or different locations or whether those different locations have different treatment plants.
If you look that up, let us know, it provides you with a ton of information to work with.
Thanks for posting!

heidi · 11-07-2011, 10:31 AM

AIgirl,
I can't find any information about the community well in this neighborhood (other then address and number of employees(3), lol). I'm pretty sure the hardness is about the same. There is no strong chlorine odor like with the city well so I assume it's lower but I sometimes used a filter for that at the last house and still had good co-washing results. I know the flouride levels were very high in the city well but don't remembe much else from the water reports they sent every year.

It will be interesting to see how my hair responds to the untreated well water at our new house. With any luck, I can go back to co-washing.

IAgirl · 11-07-2011, 11:25 AM

If you call them, they must tell you about the hardness etc. Every water treatment plant must provide that info. on a yearly basis to customers as per Federal laws. If you wait, you'll get a letter or flyer in the mail some time.
Untreated well water (IMO) tastes better. Here's a USGS water hardness map: USGS Water-Quality Information: Water Hardness and Alkalinity
I grew up with well water. We had very hard water and used a softener with an iron filter to avoid orange hair, orange sinks, orange toilets...

Good luck on the move and hope the water agrees with you!

pedaheh · 11-07-2011, 12:12 PM

Interesting that the water quality effects your ability to cowash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IAgirl

Untreated well water (IMO) tastes better.
I grew up with well water. We had very hard water and used a softener with an iron filter to avoid orange hair, orange sinks, orange toilets...

Having tasted lots of well water, I can tell you that the taste varies greatly from well to well. Some tastes great and others are plain awful.
I had orange hair in in HS from well water. Not cute.

IAgirl · 11-07-2011, 01:05 PM

Oops, I forgot Western ND and SD well water - alkaline and bitter! Parts of Iowa have awesome (and super hard) well water. I grew up drinking herbicides in that water. Probably benzene too. We had it tested often, but not for that stuff.

heidi · 11-07-2011, 03:31 PM

We won't be here long enough to get a report. The water is moderately hard though and according to the site you linked we have high nitrate levels. The map that shows alkalinity seems to indicate that we are fairly alkaline.

Hopefully the water doesn't turn my hair orange. I didn't see any signs of orange sinks of toilets, so that might not be an issue.

shizzlebeans · 11-10-2011, 01:48 PM

Agreed on the well water. The softener made it hard to rinse out stuff, so you clarified. And then my hair was orange, and badly straightened and heat damaged. I had no idea it was actually wavy, I thought it was just.. bad hair. :[