I’ve known about the effect of hard water on skin and hair since I noticed my own hair thinning. I founded Pure Blue to make a shower filter for hard water specifically to help even more people stop avoidable hair loss and gain healthier skin.
Harsh chemicals like chlorine are known to dry skin and cause irritation. Chlorine also dries hair by stripping it from even more of its natural oils. These are the facts I knew about when I set out to make a shower filter targeting hard water. However, there’s even more to a good shower filter for hard water than this.
Healthy skin is all about balance. We need our natural oils to exist and protect our skin but too much oil is also terrible for us. Achieving this delicate balance of just the right amount for moist, healthy skin is what we should aim for.
With this in mind, let’s consider soap scum. That disguising build up from soap can usually be seen wherever there is soap. On shower curtains, sinks, taps, and tubs. Minerals found in untreated hard water settle and form a thin film-like layer on surfaces. This is especially exasperated when we add a lathery soap to the equation. With time, this film just grows and accumulates more scum. Now, think of that layer of scum on your skin.
That is exactly what I found out happens to our skin. Soapy products mixed with the impurities in hard water solidify or coagulate and leave behind a layer of scum on hair, scalp, and skin. You can sometimes clearly see a thicker version of this, especially with hot water, around elbows, knees, calves and ankles. Wherever the flow of shower water is slowed down and scum has the space to settle.
What’s unsettling about this layer on skin is that it basically just clogs pores with impurities inside them. That protective oil that skin releases is then trapped with all of that in the pores. We’re talking about the cause of rashes, eczema, acne and more! So everytime your hair feels like it has a dull mask that’s weighing it down… think scum!
