Although it contains some mild sulfates like sodium C14-C16 olefin sulfonate and sodium lauryl sulfoacetate, if you follow the correct usage instructions, it won’t strip your hair due to its balanced formula. Hair reveals your personality and lifestyle, so how can you shine through if bad hair days keep cropping up one after the other?

While chelating shampoos are not as harsh as clarifying shampoos, they must still be used sparingly to avoid over-drying the hair and prevent discoloration.

If you currently live in a hard water area, a good hard water shampoo to remove minerals buildup is a must. Not a choice.

Instead of using negative charges to generate surface reduction, a demineralizing shampoo works by binding to minerals and wrapping them into water-soluble molecules that can be rinsed out. Mark DeBolt is a celebrity colorist and co-founder of Mark Ryan Salon. A protégé of celebrity colorist Marie Robinson, his areas of expertise include his signature blend of foil highlighting, balayage, and specialty color placement techniques. Currently, he’s an ambassador, educator, and hair color expert for Wella Professionals. Let’s start with the basics—what is hard water in the first place? It’s a term used to refer to water that’s full of minerals, which doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing, right? Here’s the issue: These minerals build up and harden on your hair, ultimately leaving it dry and brittle, not to mention causing color changes, too. Along with changes in your hair texture and tone, other tell-tale signs of hard water are a less-than-luscious lather with shampoo and soap, flat and easily-tangled hair, and a film-like layer on the skin. Vitamin C promotes binding properties to minerals and makes it soluble in water. This ingredient washes way, taking buildup along with it. The pH of hard water is higher than 8 (alkaline). Hair and scalp pH must be in the range of 4.5 – 5.5 (acidic) for optimal and healthy function. Naturally, if you are washing your hair with hard water every day, it is elevating the pH from acidic to alkaline. And this can cause a host of problems like:To make it worse, the heavy minerals also prevent other products like shampoos and conditioners from working effectively, causing layers of extreme buildup over time. However, it’s essential to look for shampoos that are labeled as color-safe. Some may have stronger formulations designed for very high water hardness. In such cases, you need to assess your hair and read the instructions carefully on how often to use the shampoo to maintain a good balance between deep cleansing and avoiding discoloration. One of the main problems with hard water is that it causes limescale buildup on taps, kettles, and appliances, clogging up pipes and even reducing the efficiency of heating systems. This, in turn, drives up energy bills as the appliances have to work harder.