Thread: The advantage of soft water

White wine?

Or indeed we could give you a bottle of tap water from here at the Meet next month

Originally Posted by Karakoup1

GREAT THREAD!!

I had same results, I'm talking about the softness of the skin, when I was shaving in the countryside where we have water supplied from a manual water-pump from a natural source...

Would it be a solution to boil the water before to shave with (with or without special salt)?

I will try it tomorrow as here in Warsaw we also have a quite hard water..

I also noticed a changement in the quality of my skin... It became more sensitive since I am living here..

I will post my impressions on the boiling solution as soon as I can....

Thanks again for this great thread!

Boiling will only be effective if you boil off all the water like in a distiller and let the water re condense leaving the minerals behind. Water softeners use salt in a ion exchange process where the salt is exchanged for the nasty chemicals in the water via resin beads. The only other way I know of to soften water is through filtering water through peat which works in small quantities and there are devices which claim to work through magnetism. Just adding salt to water will just make salty water.

Has anyone tried the same thing with RO water? I have an RO faucet in my kitchen, so I may give it a go. THe water here in Austin is hard, so I am curious if I'll have better lather.

I agree that soft water is fantastic for shaving. This is the third house we have lived in an installed a water softener. My wife thinks its her ideas and I get to hem and haw about the cost but I love having it and not only for shaving. Its great for all the plumbing fixtures, shower glass, water heaters, etc... Get one if you can, I highly recommend them!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Boiling will only be effective if you boil off all the water like in a distiller and let the water re condense leaving the minerals behind. Water softeners use salt in a ion exchange process where the salt is exchanged for the nasty chemicals in the water via resin beads. The only other way I know of to soften water is through filtering water through peat which works in small quantities and there are devices which claim to work through magnetism. Just adding salt to water will just make salty water.

I read you Bigspendur and I respect your point of view.

As I am someone who prefers practice over theory (no offense...) I gave it a try.

Here are the results:

I boiled 1 bottle of tap water added of 1,5 teaspoon of dish washing machine salt and I formed my lather with it.

As usual, I added some glycerin to it.

I did my prep and I then lathered my face up. I noticed that the foam seen far more dense, more compact than usual. I warmed my blade into this very hot water and shaved.

The result is that I noticed my skin was a little softer than usual. I didn't achieve the softness I had using source water in the countryside, but my skin is softer.

Furthermore, I used less lather than usual.. It seems that this "soft water" helps the soap to lather more efficiently, as my badger was still full of lather after my usual 2 passes (WTG/XTG)..

I got my BBS the same way I am used to and I got this small improvement of the skin softness.. Not as bad though.

I will soon give a try with mineral water and rain water, just to compare with it.

Hope this will help someone somewhere.

Take care!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Boiling will only be effective if you boil off all the water like in a distiller and let the water re condense leaving the minerals behind. Water softeners use salt in a ion exchange process where the salt is exchanged for the nasty chemicals in the water via resin beads. The only other way I know of to soften water is through filtering water through peat which works in small quantities and there are devices which claim to work through magnetism. Just adding salt to water will just make salty water.

That is not entirely true.
Water hardness is always the sum of what is called "temporary hardness" and "permanent hardness". The temporary hardness is removed by boiling the water. That is why chalk clutters up water kettles and other water heating devices.
Boiling can make water considerably softer.
Decreasing permanent hardness through ion replacement exchanges the Ca and Mg ions with Na ions (sodium) The water will become slightly salter (still well under the threshold for humans to taste it). There are no nasty chemicals introduced into the water.

Has anyone ever tried lathering with champagne yet?
Just wondering...

Bart.

Originally Posted by English

...Mind you, you had another variable. You were on holiday.

I was thinking the same thing. I always get a better shave on holiday

Does the water softening process as performed by home water softener units add any sodium to the water? I'm terribly uninformed about water softening.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Chris L

Does the water softening process as performed by home water softener units add any sodium to the water? I'm terribly uninformed about water softening.

Chris L

Most domestic ion exchangers replace the "hard ions" with sodium.
Hydrogen and Potassium are possible too, but you won't find those ion exchangers that often for home use, as the regeneration of such devices is more expensive.

Bart.

Unless your very sensitive to sodium chloride the additional salt in the water isn't that big a deal and if you are sensitive you can use potassium chloride in place of salt.

Boiling hard water will not remove the minerals it just makes the minerals act a little different. For most household uses boiling is no solution and even for shaving you would have to boil and use the water before it cooled substantially. The only true solution for hard water is some type of processing.