Hard Water & Hair Colour: Does Hard Water Strip Your Dye?
If you love, love, LOVE your fresh-from-the-salon hair colour (and who doesn’t?) you probably know it needs protection against well-known color saboteurs: UV rays that turn colour brassy, shampoos with sulfates that strip out colour, products made with ingredients like citrus, that can undo your hue.
When it comes to anti-fade shampoo, banishing brass, and giving you truly color-safe styling options, Color Wow has you covered. Because we’re as obsessed with keeping perfect “day one” colour as you are!
Our obsession with picture perfect colour led us to tackle one of the toughest, most prevalent (and maybe least acknowledged) colour-killers of all time:
MINERALS FOUND IN ALL TYPES OF WATER
That’s right: seemingly clear, pure, benign… your household water actually contains traces of metals and minerals that deposit onto your hair, build up overtime, interact with hair colour chemicals to distort your shade, and even rough up your texture.
Hard water is the worst offender, but even well water, soft water, city water, whatever water, has minerals that will affect your hair colour and texture!
But if you’re like most people, you don’t think twice about the water you shampoo with. You probably don’t even have a clue what comes out of your tap, and stays on your hair!
WHAT DO MINERALS IN WATER DO TO YOUR HAIR?
You’ll be shocked by how many problems are linked to mineral build-up on your hair: colour fading, brassy blondes, dingy or muddied hues, coarse rigid hair that lacks movement or body/bounce, dull, droopy curls, lackluster locks, highlights that seem to “disappear” just a couple weeks after leaving the salon.
Minerals can also pose a real problem for professional colourists. If you have mineral deposits in your hair when you go to the salon for colour processing, it can skew the results. Because certain minerals (like copper) will interact chemically and accelerate the colour processing, making it hard for your colourist to control the end results.
HOW DO MINERALS ATTACH TO YOUR HAIR?
Minerals are “positively charged” and attracted to hair strands, which have an innate negative charge. Also, when you bathe or shower in warm water your hair’s outer cuticle layer opens. Trace minerals can lodge in the openings.
WHAT ARE THE "BAD MINERALS" IN WATER?
- Calcium is the most common mineral in water. Calcium builds up on your hair, leaving it dry and weighed down. It will take the spring out of curls and can even cause perms to relax. Calcium also builds up on the scalp and causes dandruffy flaking. Calcium “build-up” can clog and even block your hair follicles, causing breakage and preventing healthy hair growth.
- Magnesium + Aluminum are prevalent in hard water everywhere. They cloud colour and leave hair dull, dry, and weighted down.
- Copper discolours light hair, producing a green tint when oxidized, and can make dark hair appear darker. Copper also interferes with colour processing, because it acts as a catalyst to accelerate developers, which can damage your hair and deliver unexpected colour results.
- Iron + Manganese will oxidize, and cause light-coloured hair to look orange and cause dark hair to become darker with red highlights. They can cause excessive drying and actually make hair texture frizzier.
-
Lead which is toxic and has been removed from most water systems, still exists in traces (because of older pipes and plumbing) and will leave hair with a dark grey caste.
SO, WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT MINERALS IN WATER THAT MESS WITH YOUR HAIR?
Finally, there is new technology that has made it possible for Color Wow to develop a product that can remove these minerals with ease… New! Dream Filter Pre-Shampoo Mineral Remover.
This groundbreaking ultra gentle spray, applied to dry hair prior to shampooing, works like a magnet in just 1-3 minutes to deliver picture perfect color.
- Remove minerals found in water that darken stain or distort color
- Extracts metals that accelerate color processing (copper)
- Removes elements which leave a dulling film that makes hair feel rough (calcium, manganese, aluminum)
