Is Broomfield's Water Actually Hard? Here's What It's Doing to Your Hair
Pictured above: styled, but still dry. The ends absorb the light instead of reflecting it. Hard water, dry air and sun all do this. Before a treatment and a trim.
Hello Lovelies,
Nikay here, and today we're talking about something nobody wants to talk about: your water.
I know, I know. Water is water, right? Wrong. If you've ever felt like your color goes dull faster here than it used to, or your blonde just won't stay bright no matter how good the toner was, I want you to actually look at what's coming out of your shower head before you blame your stylist.
Broomfield's water is a blend — some of it comes from Denver Water, some of it comes from the Colorado-Big Thompson system and gets treated right here in town. Either way, it runs moderately hard. That means it's carrying calcium and magnesium, and those minerals do not care about your $300 balayage. They deposit right onto the hair shaft. That's the dull, filmy feeling you get a few days after a wash. That's blonde pulling warm when your toner should be holding cool.
Here's the part that surprises people: it's usually not the water alone that turns blonde hair green in a pool. It's copper. Chlorine's real job is oxidizing your cuticle so the copper has somewhere to grab on. That one deserves its own post, so I'll leave it there for now.
So what do you actually do about hard water? You don't need to rip out your plumbing.
- A chelating or clarifying shampoo, used every couple of weeks (not every day — that's too much), pulls the mineral buildup back off the hair.
- A shower filter helps at the source, though I'd rather you save your money for the salon than chase every gadget on the internet.
- And honestly? A gloss on a regular schedule does more for keeping your color true than almost anything you can buy in a bottle.
Does a shower filter actually help?
It is one of the first things we recommend when this question comes up in the chair. Our view is that a shower filter is a real benefit here in Colorado, not instead of a clarifying shampoo or a regular gloss, but alongside them. If the minerals in this post are landing on your hair every time you rinse, cutting some of that off at the tap makes sense as one more layer.
We are upfront that it is not a guaranteed fix. How much difference a client notices varies, and a filter will not undo buildup that is already in your hair or take the place of the products doing the actual work in the shower. It is one input among several, not a replacement for any of them.
This is the same idea behind everything else in this post: treat what is actually happening to your hair, do not just mask it. A filter is worth adding to that routine. It is not worth skipping the chelating shampoo, the gloss, or your appointments for.
If your hair has felt "off" since you moved here, or since, well, always — it might genuinely be the water and not you. Come sit in the chair and let's talk about a plan that actually works with what's coming out of your tap, not against it.
Bisous,
Nikay