If you’ve spent time around coffee aficionados, you may have heard them bring up the term “water hardness” in their quest for the perfect brew. Or if you’ve ever showered overseas, you may have heard how “hard water” has been causing hair loss in the showers! So what exactly is water hardness?
What is Water Hardness?
Water hardness refers to the quantity of dissolved minerals, usually calcium or magnesium carbonate, that are found in water. In many parts of the world, water is pumped out of the ground from aquifers, which leach out minerals to give differing levels of hardness. Hard water contains a large quantity of dissolved minerals, as opposed to soft water. In Singapore, our water is considered to be soft, at an average of 107 mg/L* of total dissolved solids.
*https://www.pub.gov.sg/Documents/Singapore_Drinking_Water_Quality.pdf
Why does it matter?
Water hardness interferes with cleaning performance. Surfactants found in cleaning products are responsible for removal of soil. When dissolved minerals are present, they bind to surfactants and there is less to take part in cleaning. In places where water is hard, you will realise that soap does not foam much, and showering requires a greater quantity of body wash or shampoo.
Another issue with water hardness is limescale formation, which happens even with the soft water that we have in Singapore. Take a look at the shower partition or mirror in your toilet, or on the windscreen of your car. You may realise that there is a thin white haze or spots that cannot be removed easily with detergent.
P.S.: For tea lovers who drink black tea plain, the black stain which builds up in your favourite mug is due to the tannins in tea binding to calcium to form an insoluble layer. As for our coffee addicts, the minerals present in water affect the extraction of flavour compounds in coffee leading to a difference in taste depending on the source of water**.
**https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf501687c
Peridot's Solution
What are we at Peridot doing to fix this? At the moment, we’re working to develop a special glass cleaner that effectively cuts through limescale and repels water from the cleaned surface. This special technology will allow you to keep your glass looking cleaner and shinier for longer, so please leave your comments down below to tell us what you’re missing from other glass cleaners that you’d like to see in ours! And of course, subscribe to our email list below and follow our socials (Instagram, Facebook) to be updated when our new glass cleaner is released!