Hello! I'm new to henna and am looking forward to experimenting with it to achieve a rich red colour on my collar-length, medium brown dreadlocks.

My question is, I live in a town that is considered to have 'hard' water. I have seen on this forum reference to the fact that mineral content of water will affect the final henna colour. How can I avoid this? I would prefer not to have to purchase a filtering shower head (in fact I've never heard of them here in Australia, or at least in the small town I live in).

Does the hardness of the water only matter when washing out the henna? If thats the case then I could go over to my neighbours house to rinse because they have all of their water filtered. But if its the possibility of a build up of the minerals in my hair that is the problem then I will have to look into a shower head... which may be a much more expensive endevour than I had hoped for.

Any advice is appreciated :)