The advantages of bathroom shower water filters are numerous and, in some cases, surprising. Most of the advantages stem from their ability to remove the effects of a single chemical from your water. That chemical is chlorine.
To grasp the effects of chlorine, you just need to remember the last time you swam in a pool. Imagine getting home and feeling the dryness of your skin, the brittleness of your hair, and the slight tightness in your lungs from having breathed the chlorine that was aerated into the atmosphere as the water from the pool evaporated.
Now imagine your daily shower, where that same chlorine exists in your water. Without a bathroom shower water filter, your daily shower still causes the same dryness and irritation to your skin, lungs, and hair over time, even though the chlorine that flows from your tap is in smaller amounts than the swimming pool.
Add to that the fact that unless you're an Olympic swimmer, you probably shower much more often than you swim, exposing you to these smaller doses every day, and it becomes clear that the cumulative effects of chlorine on your body are an ever present problem. Many people simply adjust by buying expensive shampoos and conditioners, asthma and allergy medicines, .and moisturizing lotions.
What some people don't realize is that they could much more easily and more cost effectively install one of the bathroom shower water filters on the market and circumvent the need for these extra products, not to mention eliminating the problems at their source rather than just treating the symptoms.
How does chlorine wreak this havoc on our bodies? First of all, chlorine destroys the natural oils in our skin and hair that help to protect the delicate skin cells from the damage of sun, dust, and air contaminants. These oils also help keep skin young and healthy, preventing wrinkles and other signs of aging. Our skin is the largest organ on our bodies, and studies show that twice as much of the chlorine that enters our bodies does so through the skin as through our drinking water.
Health authorities are now seeing connections between chlorine absorption and certain types of cancer, asthma, and dermatological problems. These protective oils are also present in our hair and nails, which suffer the same damage as our skin without the benefits of a bathroom shower water filter.
The air contamination caused by chlorine is not as noticeable in the shower as it is at the pool, but since we shower so much more frequently, the inhalation of chlorine happens more frequently. The connection between chlorine as an air pollutant and asthma is especially disturbing.
Chloroform, the gaseous form of chlorine, has been noted by the E.P.A. to be a measurable contaminant in all homes without bathroom shower water filters. Studies have used this as well as medical data to explain in part the rampant increase in asthma cases in the U.S. in the last thirty years. Installing a purifier, then, not only cleans the water but the air as well.
The best part of having a filtration system is that it is incredibly inexpensive ? all of the water that one receives from the filter costs only 10 cents per gallon. With modern technological advances, bathroom shower water filters are also easy to maintain and durable.