Do you love wearing fancy clothes? Do you get frustrated when you notice a stain on your favorite shirt? Perhaps it’s because you were sipping on your coffee while simultaneously working on a project with a deadline. It’s just an assumption. In daily life, there could be numerous ways to get a stain on clothes. Yet, sometimes behind cloth stains, the problem is the water used for the laundry.  

It might not be easy to notice at first, but using hard water can cause damage to clothes. Over a period, you start noticing it. Basically, hard water usually contains calcium and magnesium in high quantities. Enough to cause a stain on your favorite shirt or pants. Unless the water is treated, the ions of calcium and magnesium attach to the fabric covering it with a dull color residue. In some cases, the fabric becomes stiff. In the worst case, fabric can actually break or develop holes.  

A couple of laundry problems caused by hard water are: –

1. Yellowing or graying of fabrics
2. Soil build-up on clothes
3. Stiffness
4. Weakening of fiber 
5. Grey streaks on colored fabrics

Getting a stain on your favorite cloth can send some people off to make purchases of new ones. Instead, you can fix problems at home, you can rectify the hard water laundry problems. 

Note: Hard water can also cause loss of hair and skin itch. 

Quality Detergent 

Yes! Although in most cases hard water makes it harder to get clean clothing. But detergent could be one of the damaging factors as well. Sometimes, a detergent fails to clean the clothes, or cause damage to them because of its high-pH levels. If you have been around chemistry classes, you’d know that pH levels differ from one compound to another. That said, choose a detergent with low pH value. Otherwise, add more detergent to your laundry. 

Use Warm Water 

Using warm water is another effective tool to combat the effects of hard water. When you increase the water temperature, the chemical reactions go up. It is beneficial especially when you are doing laundry cleaning with hard water. Once you switch to using hot water instead of cold, you might not extinguish the hard water effects, yet an improvement is surely visible. Apart from that, it might not be suitable for all the fabrics. 

Step 1: Add extra detergent 

Step 2: Soak them overnight in warm water 

Step 3: Use regular cycle (add a cup of water conditioner)

Step 4: Repeat (if required) 

1. Use water softener 

Unless you notice the signs, you might not know about hard water in your household. White stains on the utensils, clothes, hair loss, skin rash are a couple signs to look out for! Once you notice it, start using a water softener system. In case you can’t figure out about hard water or soft water, there are water hardness test kits available on the market. You can purchase one from the online store or hardware store. In this kit, you will find test strips which can be DIY used at home. 

What is soft water? 

Typically, a water softener transforms hard water into soft water. Which contains a relatively low concentration of calcium carbonate and magnesium ions. Soft water causes no harm to utensils, skin or hairs. Naturally, it comes from peat or igneous rock. 

Note: Hard water can also block household pipes. 

Wrapping Up 

Use soft water instead of hard water. A lot of time, individuals spent money in buying new clothes, skin care and hair fix. Instead, install a water softener system, choose the best for yourself and keep your household safe from any kind of hard water damage. Tracking your household water hardness scale can help you save your clothes, utensils, skin and hair. Use a hard water kit to determine it.