Ever since my arrival at Penn State, I’ve heard many, including myself, complain that our hair feels different here.  It’s a little frizzier, a little less smooth, a tad bit harder to make look good.  Most of us are using the exact same shampoo and conditioner that we used at home, so that isn’t the problem.  It could be the humidity or the air, but most of us are going with the theory that it is the water that is responsible for our numerous bad hair days.  It sounds a little bit crazy, but could it possibly be true?

Apparently, water quality differs from area to area.  According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), “Water quality can be thought of as a measure of the suitability of water for a particular use based on selected physical, chemical, and biological characteristics.”  USGS lists bacteria, temperature, mineral content, acidity, and electrical conductance as some of the characteristics of water quality.  Additionally, the geography and climate of a location are factors of water quality since water will pick up different minerals and bacteria as it moves across the ground, and the amount of water that evaporates can determine the mineral concentration left in the water.  Naturally in the water are what USGS refers to as “dissolved solids.”  These include salts and minerals, like common constituents (calcium, chloride, etc.), nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), and trace elements (arsenic, chromium, etc.).  Sometimes, there are dissolved gases, like oxygen, in the water as well.

Although water is a liquid, it has different levels of something called “hardness.”  USGS describes hardness as being “caused by compounds of calcium and magnesium, and by a variety of other metals.” Different levels of hardness affect how water is used.  When water is harder, more soap is necessary for washing and synthetic detergents are needed for laundry.  The Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska (IANR) also supports this claim.  IANR explains that, since water acts as a solvent, it picks up minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, and holds them in a solution.  The more minerals it holds, the harder the water is, and the more detergent needed for cleaning. The hardness of the water can affect many different cleaning tasks.  Sometimes, the minerals in the water may affect the active ingredient in detergents, reducing their effectiveness, while, at other times, the minerals may combine with soap to create a “sticky soap curd.”

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So what is the water like here in Penn State?  According to the State College Borough Water Authority (SCWBA), the water hardness at Penn State is around 120- 190 milligrams of calcium and magnesium per liter, and anything above 100 mg/L is considered hard.  Which makes the water at Penn State very hard. This is because most of the water is groundwater or pumped from wells, so it picks up many minerals.

How does this affect our hair?  It goes back to the soap curd.  IANR says that soap curd on hair makes it feel “dull, lifeless, and difficult to manage.”  When I read this out loud, all the girls around me nodded in agreement.  So. We aren’t going crazy; there really is a scientific explanation for our multiple bad hair days. That isn’t to say there aren’t any confounding variables, but past studies have supported our observations.  Now the question is- what can we do about it?

There is no easy solution, according to Health Guidance.  One option is to filter the water before using it, which is time consuming, or to use hair products designed to combat the effects of hard water, which is expensive.  Health Guidance also mentions the option of using vitamins C and E on the hair to help make it look “fresh and clean.”  A website about hair products, http://www.lovinourtextures.com/hard-water-your-hair/ ,  provides a list of ingredients to look for in shampoos that will help with the “hard water hair problem.”  They list Citric Acid, EDTA, HEDTA, Oxalic acid, Potassium Citrate, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Oxalate, TEA-EDTA Tetrasodium EDTA, Trisodium EDTA, and Trisodium HEDTA as ingredients that can assist in our fight to preserve our hair.  However, if you don’t feel like going to the effort to read the ingredients on the back of the bottle, you can use lemon or vinegar in your hair, or you can hope that this water does not do permanent damage before we move back to where water is normal.