The idea that Bangalore’s water causes hair loss—a modern myth—began around a few years back, and today, it’s treated as an unquestionable fact. Like many such myths, it thrives on casual observations: someone notices their or their friends’ receding hairline and quickly concludes that something in the water must be to blame. And from there, the story spreads.
In India, we lack the scientific or statistical groundwork to rigorously confirm or refute such claims. But with high confidence, I’d say the supposed link between Bangalore and hair fall is most likely a spurious correlation.
Hairfall != Hair loss
First, it’s important to differentiate between hairfall and hair loss. Factors like pollution, poor hygiene, or hard water can make hair dry, frizzy, or brittle, which may lead to increased hairfall — hair breaking or shedding from the shaft. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean permanent hair loss.
True hair loss involves the detachment of hair from the root, often leading to reduced density or bald spots. It’s entirely possible for someone to experience noticeable hairfall yet still maintain thick hair, simply because the follicles remain healthy and intact.
Can Hard Water Cause Hairfall?
There are two studies on the subject of hard water and hair breakage that I have found, and they have given mixed results.
A study published in the International Journal of Trichology investigated the impact of hard water on hair’s tensile strength and elasticity. Researchers immersed hair samples in both hard water and distilled water over 30 days and found no significant differences between the two groups.
Conversely, another study examined hair samples from 70 men, comparing baseline tensile strength to hair treated with deionized water and hard water. The findings indicated a significant decrease in hair strength after treatment with hard water, suggesting that hard water may weaken hair and increase the risk of breakage.
But here’s the thing — both studies on hard water didn’t measure hair loss, they measured hair damage. They took human hair samples and treated them with hard water in lab conditions, then measured the effect on hair’s strength and elasticity. What they observed was how the hair shaft responded, not whether hair fell out from the root.
So there’s no scientific evidence linking hard water to actual hair loss.
Another set of questions
If hard water truly caused hair loss, it raises a number of obvious questions — questions that are rarely addressed when people casually repeat this narrative:
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If bad water damages hair, why does male pattern baldness always follow a specific pattern — receding from the temples, thinning at the crown, and progressing in defined stages? If water were the cause, wouldn’t the entire scalp be affected more or less equally?
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In a 2019 survey, Bangalore’s water quality was found to be significantly better than New Delhi’s, yet Bangalore gets most of the blame. Why is that? Shouldn’t cities with worse water quality have even more severe hair loss cases?
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Why does the issue predominantly affect men and not women, even though both genders are exposed to the same water?
So why the myth?
Like most myths, it’s hard to pinpoint its exact origin — but I have two theories.
First, male pattern baldness typically begins in the mid to late 20s, which just so happens to be the age when many people migrate to Bangalore. While I don’t have hard statistics, Bangalore is a major tech hub and has a large number of senior/lead positions. People often are attracted to Bangalore because they have hit the ceiling elsewhere.
Now, if hair loss begins after someone moves to Bangalore, it’s tempting to draw a cause-effect relationship. Once water was casually blamed, the idea spread like a viral meme — and over time, it solidified into a definitive fact. Many large residential complexes in Bangalore also rely on borewell or groundwater, which makes people suspicious of the water quality — which might contribute to the myth.
My second theory (though less likely) is that young people living away from home might neglect nutrition, which can play a role in hair health. Lifestyle changes, stress, irregular meals — all of that can add up.
Most importantly, I think people underestimate how common hair loss is. Several studies show that about 30% of men start experiencing male pattern baldness by age 30, and by 50, that number rises to around 50%.
Don’t blame the water. Blame your genetics.