Explain the Slimy Feeling With Soft Water
Question:
Dear Mr. Timmons, You may have received questions similar to the one that I will pose to you from others, but I am quite confused as to what I have read on the internet. Please allow me to provide you with details. When I take a shower, I want to feel as if all of the soap, body oils, and grime will come off my body immediately. I do not mind if my skin comes out extremely dry after showering. I want to feel clean and I can always put on lotion if my skin is too dry. I have lived in southeastern Kentucky for many years and I have never had any issues while showering. I contacted my municipal water manager here in Hazard, Kentucky and he informed me that the water hardness of our town is usually around 180 parts per million and runs a range of 160-240 ppm at the extremes. The pH is usually around 7.4. During my college and medical training, I have lived in Lexington, KY; Louisville, KY; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Silver Spring, MD; and Burbank, CA. I have never had any problems while showering in those communities.
One time, we visited family friends in rural Iowa and taking a shower was an unpleasant experience. It felt as if the soap would not come off my body no matter how much water I used. When I visit my brother in Las Vegas, NV, it is the same problem with taking a shower - the soap does not feel as if it is coming off at all. I do not know if he has a water softener. When I visit my parents in New Tampa, FL the same situation as with my brother - I can't stand taking a shower as it feels that the soap will not come off no matter how much water that I use. I have read conflicting information on the internet. Some sources state that hard water causes the problems that I experience with showering in IA, NV, and my parents home in FL. Other sources say that it is probably a water softener used to lessen spots on dishes, etc., that cause that slimy feeling of not being able to get soap off of me during showering.
I read your article that states that it is actually a "silky" feeling. I respectfully disagree with your characterization of "silky" as it is a markedly uncomfortable feeling and I have noted that acne seems to be worse when I am visiting my parents as the oils are not effectively removed from my skin. My parents told me that they have a filter for their home, but I am not certain that it is "softening" the water and that is why showering is such an unpleasant experience. The reason that I am sending this e-mail is that I will be moving to the Tampa area to work. I will be renting an apartment in Brandon, FL and I am not certain as to whether I should get some sort of water treatment system or if I should just try the city water first. Most of the literature seems to point to "soft" water as the culprit for the markedly uncomfortable feeling while showering. Some say it is "hard" water. Please explain and advise.
Thank you very much. -G
The Water Doctor's Response:
Dear G, First of all, I will just deal with the facts. Whether the water is silky or slimy is a perception, not a fact. I know many people who feel it is silky and I know many who think it is slimy. Do you like Coke or Pepsi? That's personal taste - you can't say one is better than another to everyone - just you. I love baseball and another person may hate it, so when we go to a game together, he is bored and I am engaged. We are in the same place, so it is our own perception that changes everything. I just wanted to make that point.
Here are the FACTS:
1. Calcium and magnesium are “hard” minerals which combine with soap and form “curd” and suds.
2. This calcium and magnesium and soap curd does lodge in the pores of your skin in hard water.
3. Since there is no calcium or magnesium in soft water, the sodium which is a “soft” mineral, combines with the soap to form suds, without curd.
4. There is no calcium and magnesium in the water and no curd, and sodium does not stick in your skins' pores.
5. Use a pure soap like Ivory - wash one hand with soft water and rinse - it will fell slick - then wash the other with hard water - it will feel “squeaky clean.” Then taste both hands. You will taste soap only on the hard water side. Therefore the soap is gone.
6. Many people with sensitive skin break out when they bathe in hard water. I have seen people with eczema-like skin problems have clear skin after a few days with soft water.
7. There is no soap residue left when you shower in soft water.
8. There is soap residue left on the skin when you shower in hard water.
9. I cannot say why acne would occur in soft water unless the skin is stimulated by the lack of calcium and magnesium in the pores to produce oil.
10. Some people love the slick feeling - others hate the slimy feeling - it's all about perception!
11. With soft water, you get the following benefits over hard water:
b. 30% saving on water heating energy.
c. Dramatically increases the life of all water using appliances and plumbing appliances.
d. Delivers spot-free dishes in the dishwasher.
e. Cuts cleaning time in showers and sinks. Those are the facts.
This is why we offer traditional salt based water softener solutions as well as salt free water conditioners
135 Comments
I suppose anything is possible, but in softening water, the process of ion exchange occurs and what type of salt is used should make no difference. During the ion-exchange process, calcium and magnesium are “exchanged” for sodium, so there is sodium in the water with any salt. Of course, there is always “whole house Reverse Osmosis” which removes virtually everything from the water, but that is very expensive. If it were me, I would consider adding this:
https://www.uswatersystems.com/us-water-1-charged-membrane-filter-system-10-to-20-gpm.html
I have a Culligan water softener and a carbon filter. The house is a weekend house, so we do not use much water. Some people tell me that the water is “softer” than it should be. (I have no idea if this is a thing.) Someone suggested that I run the regeneration every week, and the water wont be as slippery.
Any thoughts?
What is soft or not. There is no such thing as being “softer than it should be.” Who ever said that has no idea. Slippery is a word that I would not choose, but I can get the concept. Without calcium and magnesium in the water, soap curd will not stick in the pores of your skin and you will get a slick feeling. You will not get that slick feeling with hard water because the Calcium, Magnesium and Soap Curd will stick in the pores of your skin.
We have a house with two bathrooms. We also have a Culligsn soft water unit. All was fine till we had our bathrooms remodeled. The plumbing in the wall for the shower only was redone and all is fine—we get soft water. However in the shower/tub in the other bathroom it appears that we are not getting soft water I.e. You don’t have the silky feeling after a shower and you don’t get the soft silky hair.
Is it possible that the guys that did the plumbing did something wrong that’s causing no or little soft water to go to the second shower?
Our culligsn unit is in the attached garage, has enough salt and recharges automatically. It was my impression that the soft water goes through all pipes that have water flow through them in the house. Any ideas on this?
Of course it is possible it was not plumber correctly. These test strips can confirm it:
https://www.uswatersystems.com/water-works-total-hardness-testing-strips-50pk-12166.html
You still seem to be skirting the central issue. Soft water to the vast majority of people feels terrible. I don’t care what adjective you use, it is a disturbing sensation to most people. The benefits of soft water and there are significant ones, are primarily to appliances and plumbing everything from hot water heaters, expensive fancy bath and kitchen fixtures and old school iron or galvanized piping. Rationalizing the expense and hassle factor of tradition NaCl based softening by ignoring the disgusting feeling of slipperiness is self delusion to make a person minimize the very real “buyers regret” feeling the morning shower inevitably brings about. Your explination of the chemical reaction of how long chain soapanifier molecules emulsify oils and loosen ordinary dirt is a bit simplistic. You are letting your salesman brain over ride your scientific brain. There are two types of pores in human skin. Follicle pores produce oils and sweat pores produce salty cooling sweat. Both are normally one way outlets. Grime and bacteria can clog them but that is why we bathe. Soap emulsifies our oils but the rinse water we use ionically dissolves the salty sweat residues. The ppm level of the various dissolved minerals and the relative distribution of these species in rinse water has an enormous effect on how well our soap functions to clean off oils and the rate at which salt sweat both dissolves and reacts to govern the speed at which “cleaning” takes place. The idea that soap scum or curds clogs our pours is highly midleading. If that were true, skin disease would be astronomically higher than it is. The science of water purification and how this simple compound H2O produces such complexity is truly amazing. It’s baffling array of reactions governed by pH, dissolved minerals, temperature and presence of other dissolved organic molecules and manmade compounds designed to help water act more effectively as the “universal solvent” is almost impossible to explain or predict in many cases. However, water stripped of Sodium and loaded with substitutes is great for pipes but no so much foir human comfort when bathing. The cost of RO and Ion exchange is high but the water it yields does not produce the slime bucket feeling we all know and must admit is the single greatest drawback and complaint of salt based “softening”.
Skirting the issue? See, you lose me when you just make assumptions that have no basis in fact like “Soft water to the vast majority of people feels terrible.” That is simply not true. Yes, some people believe that. My wife felt the same way at first, until she understood. But it seems to me that you don’t want to be confused with the facts, as your mind is already made up.
Yes, there are uninformed people who think the feeling of soft water is disgusting, but I’ll bet I can find an equal number who love it.
What I write is for the masses and not a scientific white paper (usually) although we could go there. Maybe the term “clogs” is not the best term to use but I know many people who once they had soft water, stopped using skin lotion. If you have hard water and wash your clothes in soft water, there is enough soap in them to do the first load. If you use a strong based-soap like Ivory and wash one hand in soft water and the other in hard water, you can taste it on the hard water hand but not the one that feels “slick.” Explain that one away!
Have you ever taken a shower in RO water? I have and it feels the same as soft water. Much of what you write is purely fiction or opinion. You don;t have to like soft water – I am fine with that. I’m not out to convert the world to soft water. It’s just one of many technologies we use to treat water.
… and by the way, I have seen people who had horrible skin conditions cured by soft or RO water use. With all due respect, I disagree with your opinions, and when you state “It’s a baffling array of reactions governed by pH, dissolved minerals, temperature and presence of other dissolved organic molecules and manmade compounds designed to help water act more effectively as the “universal solvent” is almost impossible to explain or predict in many cases,” that isn’t true either – with a detailed water analysis, we can predict for a certainty if your will will form scalr and a host of other things. Knowledge is power.
e. Cuts cleaning time in showers and sinks.
Negative. I spend a lot of time trying wash that fish slime off me. I absolutely hate soft water
Wes, this is a free country and you are allowed to have your opinion and express your opinion, but when you say something that is demonstrably false, well, I have to call BS!
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There is no “slime” even though you believe there is. What makes water “hard” is calcium and magnesium which are considered hard minerals. Part of the reason they are call hard minerals, is because they stick to surfaces. Water that is softened by ion exchange replaces the calcium and magnesium with sodium or potassium, which are “soft” minerals in that they do not stick.
You can hate the slick feeling and I know lots of people that do, but I also know just as many who love it. We all have different tastes but my question is “why the vitriol?” Does everyone have to like the same things you do. So, don’t get a water softener – I’m cool with that. We have ways of getting rid of scale that don’t involve salt.
One final thing: Did you know that if you have washed your clothes in hard water and then install a water softener, you don’t have to add soap the first time… because there is enough in the clothes to do the first load. The same thing is true with your skin, but I get you don’t like soft water.
Is there a way to find some happy medium between the hard and soft water, meaning the slimy and non slimy feeling? There are many different kinds of salts to be found in stores and I don’t know the difference without trying them all. Or are all those different kinds just a marketing ploy?
The type of salt makes ZERO difference.
by Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
Updated March 16, 2017
Do you have hard water? If you do, you may have a water softener to help protect your plumbing from scale buildup, prevent soap scum, and lessen the amount of soap and detergent needed for cleaning. You’ve probably heard that cleaners work better in soft water than in hard water, but does that mean you will feel cleaner if you bathe in soft water? Actually, no. Rinsing in soft water may leave you feeling a little slippery and soapy, even after a thorough rinsing.
Why? The answer lies in understanding the chemistry of soft water and soap.
Hard water contains calcium and magnesium ions. Water softeners remove those ions by exchanging them for sodium or potassium ions. Two factors contribute to that slippery-when-wet feeling you get after soaping up with soft water. First, soap lathers better in soft water than in hard water, so it’s easy to use too much. The more dissolved soap there is, the more water you need to rinse it away. Second, the ions in softened water lessen its ability to ‘stick’ to the soap molecules, making it more difficult to rinse the cleanser off your body.
The reaction between a triglyceride molecule (fat) and sodium hydroxide (lye) to make soap yields a molecule of glycerol with three ionically-bonded molecules of sodium stearate (the ‘soap’ part of soap). This sodium salt will give up the sodium ion to water, while the stearate ion will precipitate out of solution if it comes into contact with an ion that binds it more strongly than sodium (e.g., the magnesium or calcium in hard water).
The magnesium stearate or calcium stearate is a waxy solid that you know as soap scum. It can form a ring on your tub, but it rinses off your body. The sodium or potassium in soft water makes it much more unfavorable for the sodium stearate to give up its sodium ion so that it can form an insoluble compound and get rinsed away.
Instead, the stearate clings to the slightly charged surface of your skin. Essentially, soap would rather stick to you than get rinsed away in soft water.
There are a few ways you can address the problem. You can use less soap, try a synthetic liquid body wash (synthetic detergent or syndet), or rinse with naturally-soft water or rainwater (probably won’t contain elevated levels of sodium or potassium)
Wow! A Ph.D wrote that so it must be true!
Not so fast.
Have her explain why if you wash your hands in soft water using a pure soap like Ivory, they feel slick, but if you lick them, you cannot taste the soap, but if you wash them in hard water and rinse them you do not feel “slick” but if you lick them, you do taste the soap.
Can she explain that? I doubt it, because the soap is not washed off – if it was, you could not taste it! I call B.S. I don’t care if a Ph.D says it, even Ray Charles can see otherwise!
I just move it an apartment where the water is soft. I read conflicting comments about whether or not it sticks to the skin. It feels like it does. I did the licking the hands after washing and tasted soap on the hand washed in soft water. Also I’ve had an all – over itching problem since using soft water.
What kind of soap was it? It is physically impossible that soft water will not rinse the soap off, but if it is not a 100% pure soap (with no additives) like Ivory, you may taste some residue of other things like fragrance or emulsifiers. There is nothing for the soap to stick to when rinsed with soft water.