What effect does hard water have on your skin?

Question

I'm pretty certain it causes my skin to become dry but wanted to know if this was the case with anyone else?

Answer 1

Here the reason for the feeling of dry skin, Using soap on the body in hard water can cause the formation of a scum often referred to as “curd.” The formation of scum and curd is caused when calcium and magnesium form insoluble salts with anions (usually the stearates and other higher carboxylates found in soaps. This curd remains on the skin even after rinsing, clogging pores and coating body hair[citation needed]. This can serve as a medium for bacterial growth, causing nappy rash, minor skin irritation and skin that looks dry and continually itches[citation needed].

Similarly, the insoluble salts that get left behind from using regular shampoo in hard water tend to leave hair rougher and harder to detangle.

Answer 2

Yes it does affect your skin. I have been living out in the country for 2 yrs now and not by choice. But there is only hard water here and I have really super dry skin in the first place. So it takes a toll on my skin. So, after I'm done showering and before I dry off, I use baby oil on my body then I dry off and then I put hand lotion all over my body. It helps some but by that evening I have to put more lotion on still. But thats because I have extra dry skin that I have been battling all my life. But my suggestion to you is to make sure you have plenty on hand lotion around and use is often.

Answer 3

It will dry the skin unless you bathe in it regularly in which case your body will adapt to produce slighly more oil from the pores i th skin to compensate and prevent this drying out. It will affect certain parts of the body more than others as well because some sections of skin are more prone to drying from hard water than others.

Answer 4

firstly you might have sensitive skin so regardless of the water/humidity/ you'll get the break outs. i suggest you use a product w/ benzoyl peroxide 10% in it. usually like clearasil special acne treatment type stuff. sometimes. products w/ salysilic acid dries ur skin too much, because all it does is exofilate n not attack the bacteria. so make sure u wash n moisturize but also use bp 10% at least 2 times a day

Answer 5

That happens to me also.My skin gets really dry.I use more body lotion because of hard water.But I find that hard water rinses the soap off easier too.Soft water is less drying but it seems to take forever to get the soap off my body and out of my hair.

Answer 6

If definitely dries it out. We vacation a few times a year and my favorite part is our hotel stay overs. I love to shower and get what feels like months of grit out of my skin. My stylist clued me into washing my hair in store bought water. My hair is in much better shape now.

Answer 7

makes it dry and scaley