Glow note
Borehole and hard water on blonde
If your blonde goes flat or a bit orange a week after the salon, the water coming out of your shower might be doing more than you think.
The tone that fades for no reason
We hear the same story every few weeks at the Kramerville bay. A client leaves with a clean, cool silver blonde, does everything right at home, and by day ten its sitting somewhere between straw and old brass. She has not been in a pool, she uses the mist, she sleeps on silk. Then we ask where she lives, and the answer is a smallholding near Muldersdrift, or an estate in Midrand on a borehole, or a suburb in Pretoria east where the kettle needs descaling every month.
Water is the one thing that touches your hair every single wash, and most people never think about it. Borehole water across a lot of Gauteng and the Western Cape carries dissolved iron, manganese and calcium. Municipal water in some areas is also on the hard side. Blonde, especially lifted blonde, is porous, so it grabs those minerals and holds on to them.
What the minerals actually do
Calcium and magnesium leave a fine film on the hair that feels rough and looks dull, a bit like the white marks on a shower door. Iron is the sneaky one. It oxidises to a warm rust colour, so cool blonde slowly picks up an orange or peachy cast that no amount of violet seems to fix. Copper from old pipes can even push very light blonde slightly green, which most people blame on chlorine.
The film also gets in the way of everything else you put on. A gloss or a mask has to sit on top of that mineral layer instead of reaching the hair, so products feel like they "stopped working". They didnt stop, they just cant get through.
- Hair feels squeaky or coated straight after washing, even with conditioner.
- Tone warms up faster than your colourist said it would.
- Violet rinse seems to do less each week.
- White crust around taps and shower heads at home.
If you tick two or three of those, water is worth looking at before you change your whole routine.
Small fixes that work at home
You dont need a whole house system to see a difference, though if you are on a borehole it is worth getting the water tested anyway. Start with the shower. A screw-on shower filter with a KDF and carbon cartridge costs less than one gloss appointment and catches a fair amount of iron and chlorine. Change the cartridge on time, a tired filter does almost nothing.
Then change how you rinse. Finish every wash with a cool rinse from a jug of filtered or bottled water, just over the lengths and ends where the colour is lightest. It sounds fussy but it takes thirty seconds and it means the last water on your hair is the clean water. Our Blonde Wash Soft is low in suds so it rinses out easily in hard water, and the Violet Soft Rinse works far better once the mineral film is gone.
Once every two or three weeks, ask your colourist about a proper chelating treatment in the salon. It lifts the built up minerals so the cool tone can show again. We would rather you do this with someone than scrub at it with harsh clarifying shampoos every few days, which only dries out fragile lengths.
Before your next colour visit
Tell your colourist about your water. It really changes how they formulate. Hair loaded with iron can react unpredictably with lightener, and a good colourist will want to clean it first. Bring a photo of your shower head or tap if you are not sure, the crust tells us a lot. If you are moving house, from a city flat to a borehole property for example, mention that too, because your blonde will behave differntly in the new place even if nothing else changes.
For the first two weeks after a visit, be extra careful. Use the filtered final rinse every time, keep washes to two or three a week, and seal the ends with a little Length Oil Drop so there is less open surface for minerals to cling to.
Where to go next
If your tone is already warm, the Cool Tone Gloss page explains how to bring it back once the hair is clean. Our note on washing less and rinsing better pairs well with this one. And if you are not sure whether its the water or something else, send us a message through our contact form with your suburb, how often you wash, and a daylight photo of your lengths. We will tell you what we think.
Signs your shower is shifting blonde
From Kramerville, Sandton, our contact form is the easiest place to mention borehole water, a filter on your shower, or heavy kettle scale at home. Add your suburb if you can, especially if you are in Midrand, Muldersdrift or Pretoria East, because those water patterns often show up very clearly on blonde.
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