The skin gives insights into what lies beneath it. As the most visible and largest organ in our bodies, it’s vital for our overall health. You can gauge how healthy you are by looking at your skin. It’s not surprising to see lots of ‘don’ts’ and ‘dos’ surrounding skin health and skincare routines. However, most people often ignore how water quality affects the health and suppleness of our skin. Water is good for the skin and general health. But did you know that you can do more harm if you drink or clean your skin with poor water quality? So, what’s water quality? Why is it essential for our skincare routines?

Let’s delve deeper into water quality and why it’s a crucial element for our skin health. 

What’s Water Quality?

The term commonly describes the chemical, physical, and biological matter present in water. It basically describes the suitability of water. 

The water supplied to our homes contains more than just oxygen and hydrogen. It also contains chemicals, toxins, pathogens, dirt, or grime. Such water may be healthy for your plants or to clean your driveway. But harmful if you drink it. That’s where water quality comes in. It’s not suitable for drinking. What’s more, what’s in your water can harm or make your skin healthy. 

Why is Water Quality Vital for Skin Care? 

We all desire healthy, supple, and radiant skin. We follow routines, stay hydrated, exercise, and drink water to get healthy skin. However, we overlook our water quality and how it impacts our skin. 

The chemicals, minerals, heavy metals, and toxins present in water can harm your skin. They may cause dry skin, skin infections, premature aging, and acne. Here are some of the reasons that may convince you to start checking your water quality.  

Sagginess and Aging 

Your skin hates hard water. Hard water contains loads of magnesium, calcium, and iron. These metals or minerals can form unstable atoms that cause premature aging. If you keep using hard water on the skin, the unstable atoms gradually break down collagen, causing premature aging. Your skin needs collagen to remain firm and supple. 

Skin Vulnerability to Infections 

Skin’s natural oils (sebum) cannot tolerate hard water. The minerals in the water react with soap causing soap curds. It also coats the skin with a layer of insoluble minerals. The soap curds and insoluble minerals, in turn, prevent sebum from getting to the epidermis. Sebum plays a crucial role in protecting the skin from harmful bacteria. Therefore, limiting sebum’s production and functioning makes the skin prone to infections.

The minerals can also clog your pore causing acne. 

Dryness

If your skin keeps getting super dry despite moisturizing it, the problem could be your water quality. You could be using hard water on your skin. The minerals in hard water seep into your skin and absorb the skin’s natural oils and all the efforts you took to moisturize your skin. The minerals leave behind cracks and skin flakes. 

pH Imbalance

Chemicals, minerals, dirt, and other contaminants present in the water may cause skin pH imbalance. Skin’s pH matters. An imbalance causes dryness, acne, accelerated aging, or psoriasis. When the skin is alkaline, you may notice dryness. You’ll also see an increase in fine lines. You’ll also notice wrinkles. 

Increased acidity may cause inflamed and pimply skin. And as you’ve guessed, hard water and chemicals could be the likely cause of the pH imbalance.  

The Solution

Start by checking your water quality. Do a comprehensive water test to assess the minerals present in your water. 

If the problem is hard water, you’ll have to filter and soften the water to prevent skin issues. Water filters such as ion exchange or reverse osmosis soften hard water. The ion exchange water filter softens water by swapping the magnesium and calcium ions with hydrogen or sodium ions. On the other hand, a reverse osmosis water filter removes calcium and magnesium by forcefully pushing water through a semipermeable membrane. The membrane filters out calcium, magnesium, and other contaminants. Therefore, install either of them to clean and soften the water around your home. 

Summary 

Most people often overlook water quality and how it affects the vitality of their skin. Constantly using poor quality water puts your skin at risk of developing severe infections and skin irritations. Minerals and toxins present in water may lower the skin’s protective properties. Skin’s vulnerability to infections will endanger your general health. Your skin will thrive if you consistently use neutral and low mineral water. Keep checking your water hardness and the functionality of your water softening devices to maintain healthy skin.