Is Soft Water Better for Your Skin?

At Babe Plumbing, we take water quality seriously. Contact our Minnesota team today to book a consultation about water softeners or purification systems. 

You might not think much about the quality of your home's water beyond its taste, smell, and purity because you rely on it for drinking and cooking. However, you also use your water supply for bathing, meaning it can affect your skin as well. Water quality can be hard or soft, but is soft water better for your skin?



Babe Plumbing is a top-rated plumbing company that regularly installs water softener systems in MN. With 40 years in the plumbing industry, our team knows how a home's water quality affects how skin looks and feels. Here, we discuss the differences between hard and soft water and their possible skin benefits. 

What Is the Difference Between Hard Water and Soft Water?

Hard water refers to water with a high mineral content. Tap water naturally contains minerals like magnesium and calcium due to rain accumulating the minerals from rocks and soil as it seeps into the earth to become groundwater. Calcium and magnesium are essential for bone and muscle health, but they don't have a positive effect on the skin. 

Still, too much of a good thing can be bad. When you wash with hard water, the excessive mineral content can make it harder to keep your skin healthy and hydrated regardless of your skin care process. Hard water is safe to drink and won't harm your health, but the mineral deposit it leaves on surfaces, including your skin, can be a problem. 

On the other hand, softened water has little to no mineral content. Water softener systems purify the water supply to remove the trace amounts of magnesium and calcium. 

Hard Water's Effect on Skin

Is soft water better for your skin? The short answer is yes. Soft water makes it easier to lather soap and shampoo on your body. It also keeps your skin hydrated, making it easier for your skin to absorb moisturizers, lotions, serums, and other skin care products. 

You can certainly keep yourself clean and fresh with a hard water supply, but you could experience the following problems due to high concentrations of calcium and magnesium. 

Soap Scum Residue

Hard water is notorious for leaving soap scum behind on showers, tubs, and faucets. The dissolved minerals in the water make it tougher for the water to create a proper solution with soap, which is also why it's hard to create bubbles and lather with hard water. The soap scum and mineral residue get inside your plumbing and can cause clogs in your drains and showerheads.

The same thing goes for your skin. Instead of lathering soap on your body and rinsing clean with hard water, you'll end up with a thin layer of soap scum all over your body. The scum can clog your pores, which can cause or worsen skin problems like eczema or acne. 

Dry Hair

Hard water can also cause problems for your hair. The minerals in the water can dry out your scalp, leading to clogged hair follicles. As a result, your hair will lack the hydration it needs. Instead of feeling soft and silky, your hair will feel like straw, and it won't have an attractive shine. 

Dry Skin

Dry skin is a major problem for people whose homes have hard water. When you have soap scum clogging your pores and stripping your body of natural oils, you'll feel dry, itchy, and irritated. It'll not only be harder for your skin to absorb moisture from lotions and creams, but it'll also be challenging for your body to produce its natural oils with clogged pores. 

How to Tell If Your Home Has Hard Water

If you're unsure whether your home has hard water, consider these warning signs:

• A spotty white film on faucets and showerheads
• Soap scum buildup in bathtubs, showers, and sinks
• Low water pressure
• Problems lathering soap
• Persistent dry, itchy skin with no known cause

How to Improve Your Water Quality

You now know the answer to "Is soft water better for your skin?" is yes, but how do you soften water? The best way to get softened water is by contacting a plumbing contractor to install a water softener system in your home. 

Whole-home water filtration or softening systems remove trace magnesium and calcium ions from your water supply. Since these systems impact the entire property, you can enjoy high-quality soft water from any tap in your home. Water softeners come in many forms, including ion filtration exchange systems that replace calcium and magnesium ions with sodium ions and reverse osmosis systems that remove minerals, heavy metals, and other contaminants. 

What to Expect When Bathing in Soft Water

When you bathe using soft water, the chance of having a soap scum film on your body is slim to none. It's substantially easier to rinse off soap that has a foamy lather, which is possible with soft water. Soap and shampoo will do a better job of gently cleansing your body and keeping your clogs free of skin-drying debris. 

If you wash with hard water long enough, you might feel squeaky clean coming out of the shower. Though you might assume the squeaky clean sensation means your body is thoroughly clean, it actually means you still have traces of soap, dead skin, and dirt on your skin that didn't rinse away. 

Conversely, bathing with soft water might make your skin feel almost slippery. You'll notice that your skin feels softer, smoother, and more hydrated from natural oils and moisturizers in the soap. 

Turn to Babe Plumbing for Quality Water Softener Solutions

So, is soft water better for your skin? At Babe Plumbing, we say yes!

If your home doesn't have a good water hardness level, you can get a water softener system from our highly experienced plumbers. Proudly serving Mankato, Minnesota and the surrounding areas for over four decades, our plumbing service offers whole-home water softening systems that will keep your skin looking and feeling great and prevent scale buildup inside your plumbing. Call (507) 418-8387 today to request an appointment.