Hard Water

[kev69]

Hi All,unfortunatley I live in an area in the UK where the water is really hard I wonder if anyone has found a cream or soap that work's with really hard water,any advice would be much appreciated,I have just ordered some Taylors of bond st Eton & a new DE razor murker 33 classic,any ideas would gratefully received
cheers Kev.

 

[Kamamuri]

If you have a big problem with the water you can use a few of mineral water to improve the soap's performance.

I've done and works; here in the mediterranean spanish coast the water is very hard too.

I hope helps.

 

[kev69]

Buenos tardes Kamamuri,thanks for the advice I didn't think of that!!

 

[Wingnut]

If your water is extremely hard, you might want to invest in a whole-house water softener. Not only will it make your shaving easier, but your laundry, cooking, and showers/baths will be improved as well.

 

[ironbrewer]

I would never cook or drink water from a water softener, unless it was from a RO (reverse osmosis) or DI (deionized). The common water softeners that you add salt too replace the hardness in your water with sodium. Sodium just isn't good for you when you consume a lot. It would help with Washing clothes and less build up on fixtures. Hardness prohibits lather from forming and reduces the efficacy of soap to clean.

 

[opliko]

An average hardness of water after softening would contain approx. ~ 250mg/liter sodium. So its really not much.

 

[Legion]

I just spent the weekend visiting SWMBO in another state. Normally I would just go the couple of days without shaving but, since I was meeting her father for the first time, I busted out the travel kit.

What a difference water makes! The water in my city must be harder than I thought because at her house a cream that I am very familiar with, using a small vulfix travel brush, just exploded with super rich lather. Really, an amazing difference. I always secretly thought that the pics you guys post of the lathers you create are created through some sort of superior technique or equipment. No, my water is just rubbish! I now begin the softening experiments...

Very exciting.

 

[Pogo]

kev69,

If you can't add a systemic water softener and don't want to stock distilled water, visit calgon.com on the Web.

Hope this helps. Please let us know if it did.

Pogo

 

[Sailorman]

No need to invest in a whole house water softener or waste money on eco-destructive bottled water. You can get a small Reverse Osmosis filter reasonably cheap. Some of these units require no plumbing hookups. at all and some have little under cabinet storage tanks for "on tap" water from a little tap that looks like a soap dispenser on your kitchen sink.
I have a simple little unit that I think I paid less than $100 for on Fleabay. It makes about 4 gallons/hr. with 5 stage filtering including optional de-ionization,(which I skip for drinking water because it makes it taste flat). It brings the dissolved solids in my water down from over 1000/ppm to 0/ppm. My water is so hard, it's off the scale of my TDS meter, which tops out around 1000/ppm.
Mine uses about 4-5 gallons for every gallon of filtered water, so if you're environmentally conscious you can recycle that for plants or something. They're relatively cheap to operate. The more costly RO filter membrane has lasted well over 1000 gallons so far and is still going strong according to my TDS meter. The other filters are pretty cheap to replace and I have only replaced the carbon and paper filters once after about 700 gallons. I don't even know if they needed it. I just changed them because my water has a lot of iron and the red color bothered me.