You could have expensive serums, professional salon treatments and a bathroom cabinet that's full of products. But you might still wind up with flaky skin and brittle hair. The reason why this continues to happen is actually pretty simple. It isn't the products that you're buying. What's coming out of your showerhead could be the culprit. Your tap water has lots of minerals and chemicals in it, and those additives can throw off your skin and do a number on your hair. When your city treats the water supply, they're focused on making it safe for you to drink. Your complexion and soft hair aren't even on their radar.
Dermatologists have started to pay a lot more attention to water quality when their patients come in with skin and hair problems that just won't go away. The minerals in your water can build up on your hair over time, and they'll clog up your pores as they're at it. Chlorine is another culprit here - it strips away the natural oils that your skin relies on for protection. Even if your tap water is safe to drink, it can still disrupt the pH balance that your skin needs to actually stay healthy.
To know what's actually hurting your skin and hair, all you have to do is test your tap water. Each mineral in your water supply can create its own set of problems, and the treatment chemicals that municipalities use to make your water safe to drink don't always do your appearance any favors. Water quality can be wildly different depending on where you live - what you'll find in Kansas looks nothing like what's coming out of the faucets in Seattle. When you know the science behind this, you can pick out the right filtration system more easily.
Here's how your water could be impacting your beauty habits!
What Minerals Are in Your Water
Water picks up all kinds of minerals well before it ever makes it to your house. As it travels through layers of underground rock and soil, it absorbs different minerals along the way. Even after it gets processed at the treatment facility, those minerals remain dissolved in the water, and by the time it reaches your tap, that mineral content is still in there.
Calcium and magnesium are the two main minerals that you'll have to know about for water hardness. Water picks these up as it travels through the rock and the soil underground. How much mineral content ends up in your water supply determines if it's considered "hard" or "soft." Hard water has a high concentration of minerals dissolved in it, and soft water has very little mineral content, and at that point it's almost pure water.
Hard water tends to leave clues all around your house. Soap that doesn't seem to lather up the way it should in the shower, and white crusty buildup around your faucets and fixtures are obvious signs that your water has a high mineral content in it. The minerals get in the way of how the soap is able to create suds the way it should, and when the water finally evaporates, it leaves those mineral deposits behind as a crusty residue.
Water hardness gets measured in either parts per million or grains per gallon, and those numbers tell you the amount of dissolved minerals in your water. Less than 60 parts per million is soft water. Moderately hard water falls between 61 and 120 parts per million. Hard water ranges from 121 to 180 parts per million. Above 180 parts per million is very hard water.
Your local water supplier puts out annual water quality reports that have all of the mineral content and hardness level data you'd ever want to know. Most of them post these reports directly on their websites. But you can also give them a call and ask for a paper copy if that's easier. An even easier option is to grab some test strips from any hardware store near you. These strips change color when they come into contact with your water, and the color will tell you how much mineral content is present. The whole process takes just a few minutes from start to finish.
The mineral levels in your water come down to what type of ground is beneath your feet. If a city or town is built on limestone or chalk deposits, the water is going to be much harder. Limestone has tons of calcium carbonate in it, and it dissolves into the water pretty easily as it flows through. Areas that are built on granite or other hard rock types will have softer water. Those rocks are much denser and won't release anywhere near as much mineral content into the local water supply.
Hard Water Damages Your Hair and Skin
Hard water minerals have a bad habit of sticking to your hair for way longer than they should - even after you've finished your shower and toweled off completely. Calcium and magnesium like to settle onto each strand of hair and create a thin coating that won't rinse away, no matter how long you stand under the water. This buildup is the main reason that your hair starts to feel stiff or to have that slightly waxy texture as you run your fingers through it.
Over time, this mineral layer prevents your hair from reflecting light the way it should. Your hair will start to look dull and flat, and you'll find that it doesn't look shiny much at all. Even worse, that coating makes it extremely hard for conditioner to penetrate into the hair shaft where it needs to work. Tests show that these mineral deposits block the active ingredients in most hair care products, so those products can't perform the way they were formulated to.
Your skin deals with the exact same mineral buildup problem. Calcium and magnesium particles settle in your pores after you wash your face or soak in the bathtub. For many people, this forms a barrier on the surface that traps oil and dead skin cells underneath it - and that's probably at least part of why you break out more after you travel somewhere new or move into a different apartment. The film that minerals leave behind on your skin also gets in the way of how well your moisturizers can absorb. When you try to hydrate your face, and there's already a layer of that residue sitting there on top, your lotion is going to sit on the surface instead of soaking down into the deeper layers where you actually need it most.
When you move from a soft water area to a place where the water is hard, something tends to happen after just a few weeks - your skin starts to get more irritated and gets noticeably more sensitive. The mineral content in hard water is the main cause of this and leaves a buildup on your skin that can take quite a while to adjust to. Your body isn't actually reacting to those minerals by themselves, though. It's reacting to the layer they form between your skin and the cleansers, moisturizers and other products you use to take care of it.
How Chlorine Affects Your Skin and Hair
Your city puts chlorine in your tap water, and it's there for a real reason. Chlorine kills off bacteria and other nasty germs and makes sure the water stays safe to drink as it travels through miles and miles of underground pipes on its way to your faucet. But this same chemical that protects you from illness will also strip away the natural oils that your skin and your hair need to stay healthy and balanced.
Chlorine actually damages your skin's lipid barrier, and it's the protective layer that holds your moisture in where it belongs. This damage makes your skin feel pretty dry and tight. For anyone who deals with eczema, this effect is going to be way worse because the protective barrier on your skin is already weaker and not working the way it should be.
Chlorinated water damages your hair the same way. The chlorine actually works its way inside the hair shaft and starts to break down the proteins that make your hair strong and hold it all together. For anyone who colors their hair, fading becomes a big problem. The color is going to fade way faster than it normally would. Chlorine speeds up something called oxidation, and that's the process that breaks down the dye molecules in your hair.
Some cities use chloramine instead of chlorine to treat their water. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia, and it tends to stay active in the water system much longer than chlorine does on its own. Studies have found that chloramine could be a bit gentler on your skin and hair compared to standard chlorine treatments. At the same time, it can still dry out your skin and your hair just like chlorine does. It's still a chemical designed to disinfect water.
The amount of these chemicals that are in your water can change quite a bit based on your location and the season. Most city water systems will increase their disinfectant levels during the warmer months because bacteria multiply much faster in the heat. When your skin feels a little different as you shower in the summer versus the winter, that seasonal change in chemical concentration is usually what's behind it.
How Water pH Affects Your Skin
Most tap water sits between 7 and 8 on the pH scale and makes it neutral or just a touch alkaline. Every time you wash your face or take a shower, you're putting alkaline water on skin that's supposed to stay acidic. A chemical mismatch is taking place each time, and it's affecting your skin barrier in ways that aren't immediately visible.
The pH difference matters. Alkaline water disrupts that protective acid mantle every time it touches your skin - temporarily. But it does happen. Your skin can get back to its natural pH balance on its own over time, and that's great news. Repeated exposure is where this turns into a problem because your body has to work that much harder and harder to keep up. Clean, refreshed skin is your skin scrambling to regain its natural balance.
Science has linked this pH disruption to a few common skin problems, and the research is pretty convincing. Repeated alkaline exposure will weaken the skin's protective barrier over time, and once that barrier gets damaged, it opens up the door to a lot more irritation and sensitivity. Multiple studies have also found connections between higher pH levels and increased acne activity, and this makes plenty of sense when we look at how skin chemistry works. On top of all this, the skin's ability to hold onto moisture takes a big hit once the pH levels drift too far away from where they're supposed to be.
Hair faces the same type of issue with every wash. The outer layer of each strand works best in a slightly acidic environment, and that's the same situation that your skin needs. Alkaline water forces the hair cuticle to open up, and that's what creates the rough, frizzy texture that feels almost impossible to manage. Each wash makes this a little bit worse because your hair never actually gets enough time to bounce back before you're back in the shower again.
The chemistry here is pretty simple. Alkaline products and acidic products work against one another, so when they meet up on your skin or in your hair, your body has to work much harder to get everything back to normal.
Pick the Right Water Treatment System
Water problems aren't one-size-fits-all, and the right fix for your home is based on what problems you identified in the previous section. Say that chlorine is your biggest concern - a shower filter is probably the easiest and most sensible place to start. A shower filter attaches directly to the showerhead you already have, and it uses a carbon filter inside to remove the chlorine from the water before it ever reaches your skin or hair.
Carbon filters work well for removing chlorine and a few other common chemicals from your water. How long they last before you'll have to replace them depends on how much water you actually use. But most filters are going to need to be swapped out every few months or so. Entry-level models usually cost around $30, and the more advanced options will run you closer to $100.
Hard water takes a different strategy because carbon filters just won't do anything to the minerals - you'll need ion exchange technology for that job. A whole-home water softener gets installed right at your main water line, and it means the system can treat every drop of water that comes into your house. When the mineral buildup shows up everywhere (spotted dishes, scale on your appliances and the damage it does to your skin and hair), it's your best option.
Water softeners are going to cost you quite a bit more than shower filters will. Between the equipment itself and the installation, you're looking at anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. On top of that up-front cost, you'll also need to buy salt on a regular basis and add it to the system so everything can continue working the way it should.
Some filters will actually combine carbon and ion exchange media together and let them work on multiple water problems all at once. A hybrid filter like that can knock out the chlorine and also lower the hardness to a pretty decent level. As far as performance and cost go, you get something that sits between a basic shower filter and a softener system.
Maintenance tends to get forgotten about more than it should, and it can determine whether your entire system works well. Filters need to be replaced on a regular schedule, and if they sit there for too long, they'll eventually stop working properly. Even worse, old filters start to degrade your water quality instead of improving it. I'd recommend that you set up a reminder system for yourself (that could have been for when to change out the cartridges or refill the salt) because consistency is what makes everything work the way it should over the long haul.
Keep It All Natural
Your tap water might actually be the culprit behind those persistent skin and hair problems you've tried to solve for months (or maybe even years at this point). A simple water test has the information you'll need to figure out what changes would actually help - maybe it's as simple as a shower filter, or you might need to switch up your hair products, or maybe you'll need to adjust your day-to-day habits in some way. A basic filtration system won't give you pure water. But it can make a noticeable improvement that you'll see the next time you look in the mirror.
What touches your skin each day matters just as much as what goes into your body. Those minerals and chemicals in your shower water are the same compounds that show up in your drinking water and in your food, too, and your body consumes them every day. Change happens from the inside out first, and this matters to your wellness more than anything else.
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