7 Best Shower Water Filters (2025), WIRED Tested and Approved
Best Bathtub Water Filter
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Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
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Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Canopy
Baby Bathtub Filter
This bathtub filter from Canopy is a concept I hadn’t seen before—essentially a silicone sleeve that fits over a bathtub spout, so you can filter bathwater the same way you might do your shower. It’s a clever solution to the variability of bathtub fixtures. Installation isn’t too difficult: The silicone sleeve stretched quite easily over my older, bulky bathtub spout.
Like Canopy’s shower filters, the bathtub filter uses a mix of activated carbon, KDF-55, and calcium sulfite. Most of the marketing is geared toward baby’s bathtime—and Canopy’s website shows troubling images of baby rashes and baby skin irritation that could theoretically be prevented.
But bathtub spouts are a difficult problem to solve. And my testing of the resulting bathwater showed worse filtering results than Canopy’s filtered showerheads, likely because the system’s not leakproof. If your water pressure outstrips the filter’s flow capacity, unfiltered water will leak out into the bathtub. On my bathtub in particular, which struggles to limit water pressure, the filter was about half as effective at filtering chlorine as Canopy’s showerhead filter. This said, half is better than zero—and I haven’t yet found other bathtub filters better than this one. (You could, however, fill a bathtub using a filtered showerhead from Canopy, which successfully filters all chlorine.)
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Filter material | 3 layers: KDF-55, calcium sulfite, and activated carbon |
| Filter replacements | $25, once every three months |
| Independent lab testing? | None offered |
| Spray settings | N/A |
| Flow rate and limiters | N/A, but you’ll need to manually lower water pressure to match the bathtub filter’s capacity |
WIRED
- Works on multiple sizes of spout
- Removes much chlorine from bathwater
TIRED
- Not as effective as Canopy’s shower filters
- No lab results made public
- A little awkwardilooking
Compare Our Top 6 Shower Chlorine Filters
Honorable Mention Shower Filters
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Filterbaby Diamond Series Shower Filter for $113: This inline filter was able to reduce total chlorine levels to undetectable amounts, one of few filters on the market able to do so—and the fact that it’s an inline filter means you’ll be able to keep your existing showerhead and just slot this filter in between the pipe and your showerhead. That said, it’s a bulky filter, which means your showerhead will be about 4 inches lower than it used to be, and the screw-in system is a little awkward: It’s one of the only showerheads I actually needed a wrench to install properly. The replacement filters are designed to use minimal plastic, but they’re are also more expensive than most, at $42 every three months.
ShowerClear Filtered Shower Head, pictured as installed at a WIRED reviewer’s home.Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
ShowerClear Shower Head for $139: OK, you got me. This isn’t a filter. The ShowerClear is instead designed to solve a problem you probably hadn’t thought about but now may keep you up at night: Potentially infectious bacteria called mycobacteria, prone to causing respiratory lung infections, enjoy growing inside showerheads and are resistant to chlorine-treated water. They grow in colonies, a bit like fungus. Hence, the name. What’s worse, if you can’t open up your showerhead, you can’t see them and you don’t know they’re there. Gives you the willies. Anyway, this ShowerClear has a hinge and a latch. This means you can open it up, look inside, and clean its interior completely, with soap or vinegar or disinfectants. This is a very rare quality even among filtered showerheads. I’d be happier if the ShowerClear’s water flow fanned out a little better, or if the latch were less of a defining design feature. But what’s all that for a little peace of mind? (That said, if you want a filter to remove chlorine, you’ll also need an inline filter like the Weddell Duo.)
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Croix Filtered Showerhead for $129 and Croix Handheld Showerhead for $129: Shower filter company Croix was founded by chemical engineer Spencer Robertson, an old hand at water filtration. The fixed showerhead is handsome, and the handheld shower has a much broader array of spray settings than most—including a fun, ultra-broad spray setting that’s like a savagely powerful misting device. This said, the KDF-55 and calcium sulfite filter didn’t filter even close to the majority of total chlorine levels from my chloramine-treated water system. Based on results I’ve reviewed from Croix’s internal testing, I’d more likely recommend this device for chlorine-treated systems like the one in New York City. WIRED was able to review internal testing showing that Croix’s filters were successful at filtering most free chlorine from water, in accordance with NSF standards. Replacement cartridges and filters are reasonably priced and recommended once every four months, a longer interval than most brands on the market.
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Aquasana Inline Filter for $150: Aquasana’s funnily bulbous two-layer filter removed the majority of total chlorine in my chloramine-treated system, and it was also one of the only shower filter companies to offer independent testing data backing up its claims for chlorine-based systems. So far, so good. So why’s it not up near the top of our list? A flimsy shower wand with poor spray force and radius, a slight but unfortunate tendency toward leakiness at the shower connection, and unforgiving geometry that means it doesn’t link up well with all showerheads as an inline filter. Still, it works and it’s lab-attested for free chlorine removal, and I happily recommend it.
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Jolie Filtered Showerhead for $165: Jolie pioneered the influencer-centric, testimonial-driven marketing model that has made shower filters so dominant in the public conversation. Its design, which looks a bit like a giant Monopoly playing piece and comes in chrome, gold, black, or red, is eminently likable. The device offers even water spray and a soft, stippled faceplate that feels luxuriant in the strangest of ways. But Jolie didn’t respond to requests for independent testing when we asked in late 2024, and our own testing put it somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of removing total chlorine from a chloramine-treated system.
Not Recommended
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Sproos! Filtered Hand Shower for $148 ($99 with subscription): Sproos is a quirky, kicky, kooky shower brand aimed squarely at young “renters and DIYers”—offering a rainbow of bold colors for handheld filtered showerheads. But filter testing was middle of the pack. Also, the valve on Sproos’ heavy, side-mounted filter broke under its own weight after two days when we tested in 2024, causing an alarming bang and a bit of a mess.
Kohler Cinq for $150: Kohler is a venerable Wisconsin brand with a number of water treatment options for showers and faucets. The Cinq filtered showerhead is admirably classic in form, and its five-layer filter looked equally promising, advertising in particular KDF-55 and activated carbon. Home testing didn’t show great results with my chloramine-treated water, however, and for the price I felt entitled to high expectations. Requests for independent lab testing data in 2024 didn’t get results.
Act + Acre Showerhead Filter (Out of Stock): Beauty company Act + Acre’s filtered showerhead didn’t perform as well as others in my home testing of total chlorine. We also didn’t fall in love with the showerhead itself, which looks a bit like a gooseneck desk lamp and droops awkwardly from the shower pipe. The showerhead was listed as out of stock when we checked in multiple times during 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions
How We Tested and What We Tested
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
The market for filtered showerheads remains young and largely unregulated, and performance claims are only rarely backed up publicly by independent data. We made lots of requests, but few shower filter companies hand over their lab results. (Thank you, Aquasana, Weddell, Croix, and Curo for being exceptions.)
Some makers told us that independent labs and certifying bodies have been backed up, and that data is forthcoming. Many offered customer satisfaction surveys or anecdotal studies instead. This all means that some skepticism is warranted.
And so I got out test kits at home, instead. First I tested the total chlorine levels in the water without any filtering, a measure that includes either chloramine or free chlorine that’s interacted with whatever’s in your pipes. Then I tested the water filtered by the showerhead. I performed each test multiple times to account for imprecision or fluctuations in testing and in municipal chlorine levels. In most cases, I did this over multiple days.
For testing, I avoided painfully unreliable home test strips, and instead got out somewhat nasty chemical indicators and used digital and chemical tests designed for pools and aquariums.
We also tested total dissolved solids using a TDS meter, and separately tested filters’ effects on pH in order to gauge effects but also to verify the reliability of chemical test results.
The effectiveness of filters goes down over time, of course, depending on how much contamination is filtered out of the water—which is why filters always need to be changed. As we update this guide, we’ll continue to test the most effective showerhead filters to see how their efficacy changes over time—and add any new shower filters we’re able to recommend.
What Shower Filters Probably Don’t Do
The best shower filters I tested will improve your water quality. But shower filters can only do so much. The upshot is that you probably shouldn’t expect these shower filters to soften the mineral hardness of your water or remove most substances. Hard water is more often solved by specific water softeners, reverse osmosis filters, and whole-house water filtration systems.
After all, a filter must be relatively small to fit into a showerhead. And yet it’s being asked to filter gallons of water each minute, pushed out at both high temperature and high pressure. A showerhead filter poses a daunting engineering challenge, as compared to countertop water filters that treat only a small amount of water at a time—or a bulky reverse-osmosis device that can plug into your under-sink plumbing.
So what do these showerhead filters actually do, in a way we can measure? They filter chlorine and chlorine compounds, mostly through chemical reactions. Pretty much every American city adds low concentrations of chlorine or chlorine compounds to drinking water to kill potentially harmful bacteria. This is all well and good when the water’s still in the pipes. But chlorine’s not exactly great for your hair or your skin, and few people like to drink it. Some are also especially sensitive to the taste or smell, or prone to skin reactions.
The most prominent home shower filters rely in part on a zinc-copper mixture called KDF-55, known to be quite effective at neutralizing “free” chlorine in chlorine-treated systems. Other common substances used to treat chlorine and chlorine compounds include calcium sulfite and activated or catalytic carbon. The most effective filters use these in some combination. The main thing I was able to test and verify was shower filters’ ability to remove the total chlorine content of water coming out of your shower.
We’ve seen little evidence that the most common types of showerhead filters have much effect on the softness or hardness of water, or on calcium buildup. In fact, some early academic studies present evidence that they don’t. The shower filters we tested also had very little effect on the sum total of dissolved solids in our water, according to measurements with a TDS meter—i.e., the filters aren’t removing a large amount of materials or minerals from the water.
I wasn’t able to test claims by some companies that these filters remove heavy metals like lead and arsenic, which thankfully aren’t in my pipes. We only found one company, Weddell, whose filter was certified to remove lead. So far, so good! Nonetheless, if you believe you have dangerous lead or arsenic in your water, you probably shouldn’t try to fix the problem with a mail-order showerhead. Talk to a water treatment professional or your public health authority.
If you live in a major US city, chlorine is likely not what your city uses to treat the water in its pipes. New York, Chicago, Seattle, and Phoenix use chlorine, sure. But Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, and most big cities in Texas don’t.
More than half of American big cities use a substance called chloramine, a more stable and enduring chemical that’s harder to filter and test. That’s also what was in my water supply. To test, I got out my handy digital water colorimeter and a somewhat nasty chemical indicator, and then tested the ability of each shower filter to treat any of a number of chlorine compounds in the water.
Curious whether your city uses chlorine or chloramine as a disinfectant in your pipes? Check here for an accounting of the 50 biggest municipal water systems in the United States.
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