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These 10 hard water shampoos will help fix your bad hair days
Let's address the biggest hair issue for city dwellers
Hi, hello, if your hair has been dry, prone to breakage, or your curls are lookin' straw-like and limp, chances are hard water might be the culprit. So, a lil' refresh: hard water is high in minerals naturally, and these minerals can bind to your hair, leaving it 1) dry, brittle, and damaged and 2) prone to colour loss, so much so that the best hair toner or colour-depositing conditioner won't even help. URGH.
But short of moving out of the city and into the countryside or installing a hard water-filtering shower head like the Hello Klean Shower Filter (which will help to a certain degree), your best and easiest step is adding a tried-and-tested hard-water shampoo to your hair routine.
Shampoos for hard water are formulated with a mix of chelating agents (i.e., ingredients that bind to metals and minerals and break them down) to strip your hair of hard-water build-up. And, lucky for you, we've personally tested and reviewed a ton of these shampoos to separate the meh from the hell-yes. And before you question if you really need a special shampoo, know that hard-water minerals can quickly build up and “leave your hair feeling filmy, straw-like, and limp,” celebrity hairstylist Irinel de Leon told Cosmo. So if you want to keep your hair healthy long-term, you need to regularly "reset" it with a good hard-water shampoo, like one of our favourites:
Our top hard-water shampoo picks of 2024:
- 1
Best High Street Hard Water Shampoo
Aveeno Haircare Clarify and Shine+ Apple Cider Vinegar Shampoo
Read review - 2
- 3
- 4
Best Hard Water Treatment for Colour-Treated Hair
Color Wow Dream Filter Pre-Shampoo Mineral Remover
Read review - 5
Best Hard Water Shampoo Rinse
Creme of Nature Creme of Nature Apple Cider Vinegar Clarifying Rinse For Natural Hair
Read review
Of course, not all hard-water shampoos are the same: Some clarify your hair, while others chelate your hair; some are incredibly drying, while others are surprisingly moisturising. So, to help you choose the best shampoo for hard water, we've broken down the top-performing formulas below, along with their key ingredients and whether or not they're free of sulphates.
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Aveeno Haircare Clarify and Shine+ Apple Cider Vinegar Shampoo
This sulphate-free shampoo from Aveeno uses sodium citrate and apple cider vinegar to gently remove build-up from minerals, hair products, and scalp oils without making your hair feel totally stripped and straw-like.
And, as an added bonus, the apple cider vinegar will help soothe itchy scalps, thanks to its natural anti-inflammatory properties.
Glowing Customer Review: "This stuff is just excellent," one tester writes. "All its claims have been, for me, 100% true! My curls have never been so defined, frizz-free, bouncy and shiny! Added bonus that it smells amazing. You don’t need much of either the shampoo or conditioner. Gives a deep clean while also adding back some moisture. 10/10."
Hello Klean Hard Water Shampoo
This clarifying shampoo and anti-breakage conditioner duo is the ultimate formula to help remove some of the build-up on your hair from both hard water and gunky scalp oils. A mix of sulphate-free cleansers and clarifiers and oil-absorbing charcoal will leave your hair feeling lighter and "reset" after one or two uses. Then the conditioner will swoop in to strengthen your hair with rice proteins and plump it as well—s/o to the hyaluronic acid.
Glowing Customer Review: "Having moved to a part of the UK with hard water (which I'm not used to), I have struggled with dry skin and a really sensitive, itchy scalp for over a year. I have tried everything—nothing worked. Until this. I bought the scalp conditioner and the shampoo. After just one use I noticed a difference. After using both products for three weeks, my scalp feels back to normal. No itchiness, no sensitivity. I could cry with relief."
K18 Peptide Prep Detox Shampoo 250ml
The brand testers love for damaged hair—s/o to the cult-favourite K18 molecular hair mask—also has a clarifying shampoo that's key for dealing with brittleness, dryness, and colour loss due to hard water. It's jam-packed with ingredients like activated charcoal that absorbs excess scalp oils, salicylic acid that acts as a chemical exfoliant, and the brand's signature K18Peptide that helps prevent protein loss—i.e., the key component that seals your hair cuticle to prevent breakage. This powerhouse combo results in clean, mineral-free hair that's both smooth and healthy-looking.
Glowing Customer Review: "We have hard water with tons of nasty chemicals in San Antonio, plus I use a lot of products on my hair, so using a clarifying shampoo once a week or week and a half, followed by a purple shampoo (currently loving Amika Bust Your Brass) is necessary to keep my blonde toned. The K18 Peptide Prep has worked soooo well!"
Color Wow Dream Filter Pre-Shampoo Mineral Remover
If your colour-treated hair is basically unrecognisable from hard-water build-up, you need this product. It's technically a pre-shampoo treatment, rather than a regular shampoo, but it works to remove the super-tough minerals (see: magnesium and calcium) without any harsh or stripping ingredients—really. Just spray it all over your dry hair before stepping into the shower, let it sit for three minutes, then hop in and rinse out with your regular shampoo.
Key ingredients: glycerin, acrylic acid copolymer (breaks down minerals)
Glowing Customer Review: "This product worked well on my hair with light-blonde highlights," one tester notes. "We have very hard water and my colour was looking very dull, dry, and brassy. I applied this as directed, waited about 10 minutes, and washed and conditioned. ... The results were noticeable, my hair looked much better and was softer with more shine. Great product! I plan to use this weekly to keep my highlights looking fresh"
Creme of Nature Creme of Nature Apple Cider Vinegar Clarifying Rinse For Natural Hair
Apple cider vinegar is truly an all-star ingredient for your hair—it helps treat dandruff, cuts down on itchiness, breaks down scalp oils and mineral build-up, and leaves your hair shinier and softer. For real. Just use this rinse in place of your shampoo once a week for an added dose of clarifying powers (though you may need to use more frequently based on your hard-water situation).
Glowing Customer Review: "I love this stuff," one reviewer writes. "I have dreadlocks, and this makes my scalp feel amazing after I rinse it and gives a cooling effect when I put it on my hair."
Briogeo Superfoods Mango + Cherry Balancing Shampoo
This clean, sulphate-free clarifying shampoo uses a chelating ingredient called EDDS that binds to and deactivates certain minerals, like calcium and copper, that are commonly found in hard water. Copper, FYI, is a big hair-colour ruiner, so give this sulphate-free shampoo a try if you're worried about your blonde or colour-treated hair, or if you just want a middle-of-the-road, not-too-intense clarifying formula.
Sulphate free: Yes
Glowing Customer Review: "It feels amazing not to have to deal with oily hair anymore," reads one tester review. "It removed the oil on my scalp without drying out my hair. This allows me to use one wash rather than two. The small is akin to fruit juice."
If you've been scarred by overly-drying and stripping clarifying shampoos but need something to lift all the calcium and hard water minerals off of your locks, you'll love this. It's quite a light, runny texture so perfect for those with finer hair.
Glowing Customer Review: "Great clarifying shampoo. I use once every week or so to remove product buildup, and sometimes after exercise, alternating with my regular Davines shampoo. Also good for people living in hard water areas. Helps hair to have more volume and not lie flat. Davines products are expensive, but I'm willing to pay for them as they're very effective. The minimal packaging looks nice in the bathroom, too."
L'Oreal Professional Metal Detox Sulphate Free Shampoo
It's not just how your hair feels when it has hard water build up, especially if you have coloured hair. Build up can drastically affect the vibrancy of colour - truly annoying when you've spent £££ on your perfect balayage. This from L'Oreal Professionnel gently lifts build-up and neutralises copper deposited to keep your colour true to tone.
Glowing Customer Review: "From the first use this has made my hair so soft and shiny. We have very hard water and my hair has been feeling dry and looking dull. Feel this could be drying if used too frequently though."
KERASTASE Première, Decalcifying Repairing Bonding Shampoo
Ok, this super luxe price tag is a lot but, but, truly this shampoo is game-changing. Its sole job is to decalcify the hair so if hard water has completely messed up the texture of your hair, this will help to rebuild it. The formula contains citric acid and glycerin to buff away calcium build up and strengthen your hair's elasticity too.
Glowing Customer Review: "This shampoo and conditioner line is amazing if you have hard water. I use it once or twice a week and my hair is so soft and manageable now. I have very fine thin hair and it's not a heavy product."
How often should you use a hard-water shampoo?
The purpose of a hard-water shampoo is to strip your hair of build-up, minerals, and gunk that is causing your hair to be damaged, dry, brittle, flat—the list goes on and on. But because hard-water shampoos are so effective at stripping tough-to-budge-build-up, they can also sometimes strip your hair too much, resulting in moisture loss.
The fix? Shampoo once a week, per the instructions on the bottle, and see how your hair reacts. If you're using a particularly strong hard-water shampoo, make sure you're following up with a good post-wash conditioning routine.
How to choose the best hard-water shampoo
Figure out which type of formula your hair needs
You’ve got two shampoo options to help you remove hard-water build-up: chelating and clarifying shampoos. Chelating shampoos (sometimes called demineralising shampoos) tend to be harsher and more drying than clarifying shampoos, and they work by binding to the minerals stuck to your hair and then breaking them down while you suds up.
Clarifying shampoos, on the other hand, will help strip away some of the mineral build-up—along with basic product build-up—but they aren’t as effective at harder-to-remove minerals, and they may not even remove tough product build-up, like waxes and silicones.
If you're dealing with major mineral build-up—like you just spent two weeks swimming in a chlorinated pool and showering in hard water—go for a tried-and-true chelating shampoo, like the Kerastase Première Decalcifying Repairing Bonding Shampoo. But if you're not quite sure what your hair needs, try the Color Wow Dream Filter Mineral Remover (which will gently break down minerals)
Take a look at the ingredients
Typically, most shampoos—even the bottle you've got sitting in your shower right now—will contain one or two ingredients (known as chelators) to help break down minerals. But the difference between your regular shampoo and a hard-water or clarifying shampoo is the amount and strength of each chelator in the formula.
The best hard-water shampoo will be filled with a mix of chelating agents, along with vitamin C (aka ascorbic acid), apple cider vinegar, sodium citrate, sodium gluconate, and/or citric acid. As long as your shampoo has a few of these chelators and also promises to break down build-up, you'll be golden.
Manage your dryness expectations
Regardless of which type of hard-water shampoo you grab, know that it's going to leave your hair feeling at least a little dry and stripped (sorry—that's the name of the hard-water game). So if you're super worried about dryness, look for a shampoo formulated with moisturisers.
Or, just grab the first hard-water shampoo you find, strip away the minerals, accept the dryness, and then saturate your hair with a thick and buttery hair mask (like my favourite SheaMoisture Intensive Hydration Masque) or a protein-based deep conditioner.
From Cosmopolitan US
Chloe Metzger is the deputy beauty director at Cosmopolitan, overseeing the editorial content and growth strategy of the hair, makeup, and skin space on digital, while also obsessively writing about the best hair products for every hair type (curly girl here; whattup), and the skincare routines that really, truly work (follow her on Instagram to see behind-the-scenes pics of that magazine life). She brings nearly a decade of writing and editing expertise, and her work has appeared in Allure, Health, Fitness, Marie Claire, StyleCaster, and Parents. She also has an unhealthy adoration for Tom Hanks and would like to please meet him one day, if you could arrange that. Thanks.
Keeks Reid is the Beauty Director at Cosmopolitan UK. While she loves all things beauty, Keeks is a hair fanatic through and through. She started her career in beauty journalism in 2013 as editorial assistant at Blackhair and Hair magazines working her way to Acting Editor of Blackhair magazine at 23 years old. She spent much of her career working in trade hairdressing media at Hairdressers Journal, Salon International and the British Hairdressing Awards. Which is why she is a regular contributor to Cosmo's Curl Up franchise. Now, alongside her Cosmo work, she presents, creates content on social media and works with a range of beauty companies; from magazines and websites to beauty brands and salons.
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