sarstang

Hi everyone! One of my gf's recently turned me on to CG since I've always beaten my hair into submission w/ flat iron/ blow dryer/ etc. Anyway, I am loving my waves so far. The very first day I did CG, I was amazed at how my hair looked. I didn't even have gel and used some rusk sulfate free poo and condish and it was a total difference. I was sold, went to Ulta the next day and bought up some deva no-poo, one c, arc angell and ouidad botanical refresher; went to Sunflower and got some lavender oil to make lavender water, felt like I jumped straight into the fire.
I live in CO and so have hard water. Since this is only the first week that I've switched, when will I start to see the effects of the deposits in the water? What should I do to combat? ACV? Use the rusk stuff? Old aveda stuff? How often do you do these things?
My hair is pretty well damaged from coloring, heat styling, pulling up, etc. Every possible thing to control my hair instead of nourish it. On the plus side, it does style pretty well.
What steps would you take?
Thanks!

IAgirl

Hard water may not be a problem for you. Some of us have always lives with hard water and don't like our hair when we go places with softer water.
Hard water has minerals - calcium, magnesium, mostly. In arid places, the water can be a bit alkaline (high-ish pH). You can buy pH test strips at pet stores (for aquariums), for swimming pools or at drugstores and test your water. If it's a bit high (higher than 7), then it can be a bit drying to hair.
VInegar rinses or citric acid rinses are good for removing hard water minerals, but can be drying - so you have to experiment.

If you feel that hard water is weighing your hair down, try doing an entire wash/rinse/condition/acidic rinse with a large bottle (gallon) of distilled water only. If it is still weighed down after that - it's the conditioner, not the hard water!

__________________
Fine (ii), not very porous, elastic-y waves and curls (IA = Iowa)
http://scienceyhairblog.blogspot.com/

wavymom

I agree with IAgirl. Wouldn't worry about the hard water until you are sure it's a problem. I do an occasional ACV rinse, like maybe 1x per month max. It is amazing when I do it, but I don't want it to dry out my hair. And when I do it more often I never really noticed an effect. So... maybe an occasional ACV / citric acid rinse would be in order. I know some people also install filters in their shower heads to help with hard water buildup, but I haven't personally looked into this really.

Otherwise I would recommend determining your hair properties, as that will help you figure out what might benefit your curls. For instance, fine hair loves protein (and I wish I would have figured that out a lot earlier than I did, because protein has made all the difference for me); coarse hair does not. See link below for more information on hair properties.
Live Curly Live Free - Curly Hair Basics

Also - you'll probably generally want to avoid humectants in dry CO. They aren't such a big deal in anything you rinse out (i.e. your conditioners) but are something to keep an eye out for in stylers. I simply cannot use anything containing glycerin high up on the ingredient list for this reason.

Hope that helps! And glad you are enjoying your hair so far!

sarstang

Thanks so much! So helpful!
It was so super dry yesterday, the top layer of my hair just about fell totally flat by the end of the day.

Today I went to target and bought some KCKT and KCSS to use instead of the deva stuff to see if it makes any difference since it's dry today too. (I actually zapped myself getting out of the car today)