7 Best Shower Water Filter, Tested Wired and Reviewed
If you spend Enough time on Instagram, you may find the idea that the biggest problem with the US is water. And that the best shower water filters are the only answer. Over the past few years, a new generation of stylish filtered showering to kidnap our collective social media feed – and probably our subconscious – has come up with a terrible question.
Can you really trust the water that comes out of your shoulder?
The answer, according to the Wired report, is not always encouraging. The makers of filtered bathroom seats often make bold statements about what your deterging pipes and shower water full of chemicals may be done to your body. If you can get rid of the chlorine or contamination in your water, this argument may be a cure for your most embarrassing problems: everything from fried hair to dandruff, hair loss, eczema, dry skin, slots, slides and psoriasis.
The best shower water filters in this list are very suitable for eliminating abrasive chlorine compounds that cities add to your milk water to eliminate bacteria. And so that was our focus. Perhaps half of the country’s water systems, including New York and Seattle, use chlorine to disinfect water in the city. But most major metropolises use a more stable substance called chlorine, which is thought to have less carcinogens. It is more difficult to filter chlorine – and not all shower filters are successful.
In fact, the difference in performance was in some cases shocking. So, let’s say you don’t like chlorine in your water? And you live in a city? These are the shower that we recommend.
For more purity and test filters, check our guides about the best backpack water filters, the best air purifier and the best air quality monitors at home. For more ways to align your bathroom, check our guides to the best suggestions, the best electric toothbrush and the best environmentally friendly cleaning products for your home.
Updated April 2025: We have added Duo, Hydroviv and Curo filters to Weddell Duo, Hydroviv and Curo and updated our descriptions of previous choices after testing. We also updated prices and links.
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How we tested and what we tested
Photo: Matthew Carreage
The market for filtered bathrooms is young and mostly unregistered, and functional claims are rarely rarely backed by independent data. We made a lot of requests, but a few shower filter companies offer their laboratory results. (Thank you, Aquasana, Weddell and Curo for exceptions.)
Some creators told us that independent laboratories and approved objects have been supported and that data is in the future. Instead of many of them, they provided customer satisfaction survey. All this means that some doubts are necessary.
And so I came out of the test kits at home. I first tested the level of chlorine in the water without any filters, an action that includes free chlorine or chlorine that interacts with everything in your pipes. Then I tested the water filtered by the shower head. I did each test several times to take the inaccuracies or fluctuations in the test and at the municipal chlorine level. In most cases, I did this for several days.
For the test, I avoided experimental strips in the painful home, and instead I excluded a little unpleasant chemical indicators and used digital and chemical tests designed for pools and aquariums.
We also tested soluble solids using one meter of TDS and tested the effects of separate filters on the pH to measure the effects but to verify the reliability of the chemical test results.
The effectiveness of the filters decreases over time, albeit out of water depending on the amount of contamination – so filters always need to be changed. By updating this guide, we will test the most effective shower filters to see how their effectiveness changes over time – and we add any new shower that we can recommend.
What shower filters are probably not doing this
The important thing is that you probably should not expect these shower filters to soften the hardness of your water minerals or eliminate more materials.
After all, a filter must be relatively small to fit in a bathroom. And yet it is asked to filter the gallons of water every minute, drive at high temperatures and at high pressure. A shower filter is a daunting engineering challenge, compared to table water filters that treat only a small amount of water at a time-or a reverse bulk nationwide device that can be attached to the piping under your sink.
So what do these shower filters actually do, so we can measure? They filter the compounds of chlorine and chlorine, more through chemical reactions. Almost every American city adds low concentrations of chlorine or chlorine compounds to drinking water to eliminate potentially harmful bacteria. It’s all good and good when the water is still in the pipes. But chlorine is not exactly great for your hair or your skin, and few people like to drink it. Some are particularly sensitive to taste or odor or susceptible to skin reactions.
The most prominent home shower filters, part of which rely on a copper mixture called KDF-55, which is quite effective in neutralizing the “free” chlorine in chlorine-treated systems. Other conventional ingredients used to treat chlorine and chlorine compounds include calcium and carbon sulfitis or catalytic. The most effective filters use these in some combinations. The main thing I was able to confirm and test was the ability of the shower filters to eliminate the entire chlorine chlorine of the water out of your shower.
We have found little evidence that the most common types of shower filters have a huge impact on water softness or hardness or calcium. In fact, some initial academic studies provide evidence that they do not. The shower filters we tested also had a very small effect on the whole soluble solids in our water. Due to measurements with one meter of TDS – IE, the filters do not remove much of the materials or minerals.
I couldn’t test the claims of some companies that these filters eliminate heavy metals such as lead and arsenic, which are fortunately not in my pipes. We only found a company called Weddell whose filter has been confirmed to remove lead. So good! However, if you think you have a dangerous lead or arsenic in your water, you probably should not try to order the problem with a postal seat. Talk to a water purifier or public health organization.
If you live in a large US city, Claire is probably not what your city uses to purify water in its pipes. New York, Chicago, Seattle and Phoenix use chlorine, sure. But Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston and Texas’s largest cities do not.
More than half of the major American cities use a substance called chlorine, a more stable and lasting chemical whose filtering and testing is harder. That’s what was in my water. For testing, I exit the useful digital water color meter and a little unpleasant chemical marker, and then tested the ability of each shower filter to treat each of the number of chlorine compounds in the water.
I first tested the whole chlorine in the water without any filters, then tested the water filtered by the shower. I did each test several times to calculate the inaccuracies or fluctuations in the test and at the municipal chlorine level. In most cases, I did this for several days. By updating this guide, we will test the most effective shower filters to see how their effectiveness changes over time – and we add any new shower that we can recommend.
