When I come across new information in my research, like most people, I tend to be a little skeptical at first. Often times, I have to read it several places before the information registers as something I should pay attention to.
Such was the case when I first read about filters for your shower. I first read about the necessity of shower filters in Kevin Trudeau’s book, Natural Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About. If you’ve read that book, you know how outlandish much of the information in that book sounds. I’m not saying the information is true or untrue (although I’ve come to believe a large amount of it is), I’m just saying that the information is shocking. And for almost anyone, you’d come away after reading that book thinking, “Nah, that can’t possible be true!”
Trudeau makes the statement that you absorb more toxins by taking one shower than by drinking eight glasses of water. The same toxins you are trying to avoid by drinking filtered water are absorbed through your skin and breathed in through the steam. There was so much information in that book to process, the whole shower filter thing simply got tucked into the back of my brain.
Then I read an article with almost the same information in a magazine a year or so later.
Then most recently, I read the same thing in Dr. Don Colbert’s The Seven Pillars of Health. Hmmmm…now I’m starting to pay attention!
It makes sense though, right? How else would nicotine and birth control patches work if chemicals your skin comes in contact with don’t end up in your blood stream?
This is no problem for those of you who drink tap water and have no problems with it. I, however, do. I have seen my city’s water reports, and I’m not impressed. (To look up your city, visit this site http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/home).
So, I went looking for a water filter for my shower and ran across an Aquasana water filer. The Aquasana AQ-4100 Deluxe Shower Water Filter System with Adjustable Showerhead to be exact. This filter was the most I’d be willing to pay and seemed to get the best ratings of the filters I’d researched.
About 10% of the people I’d run across online had something bad to say about the filter, but that was better than the others I’d read. And most of them were about the installation. So, I ordered one.
I was a little disappointed because installation did prove to be a pain, but only because my other showerhead was a weird style and didn’t have the correct male part for my female filter. So I did have to go to the store and buy a new arm, but I don’t think most people would have to. After we got the arm installed, things from there were smooth sailing. A little plumber’s tape, and the filter screwed right on and didn’t leak at all (much to my delight, since I’d read a couple of complaints that it had). It also has very good pressure, which I had also been worried about.
Many people say their hair and skin is softer because of their filter but I certainly haven’t found that to be the case. It seems like the same old shower to me. But that’s ok—I was really looking for the health benefits anyway, and hopefully they are there, but who knows! I give the filter 4 out of 5 sheep because the pressure is great and no leaking. I can’t give it 5 out of 5 stars because I can’t tell if it’s actually filtering well or is just an expensive hunk of plastic hanging in my shower.
One of these days, I’m going to send off my tap water, my now super-duper, toxin-free shower water, and my super-duper filtered drinking water to a lab and just see how the results come back. I want to know if I’m paying this money for nothing! And when I do, you’ll definitely be reading about it.
Simply,
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Great review! This filter is definitely nice for its moderate price. It really depends on where you live to decide how important a water filter is for your shower. I live in oregon where the water quality is very high so a shower filter probably isn’t as important.
That would be awesome if you sent your water to a lab.