Why you should not buy a Vitamin C shower filter

Vitamin C water filtration material lost its popularity years ago since it was not as effective when compared to other filtration material such as KDF and activated carbon. However, it made a comeback in form of shower filter. Vitamin C shower filters are everywhere now they come in a colorful variety and claim to remove chlorine and chloramine, add a nice aroma to your shower and they claim to vitalize your hair and skin with vitamin C. When you look beyond the hype, there is not much evidence to back these claims. Therefore we’ve tried to capture most of these claims and provided answers to each claim below.

Does Vitamin C remove chlorine?

The claim that Vitamin C filters remove chlorine is a complicated one. We’ve tried to find independent research that shows the effectiveness without success. In an interview with Bloomberg Neal Langerman at the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health and Safety. “From a chemistry standpoint, vitamin C does react with chlorine and consume it. The concept has even been proven by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But the filters are all hype”. The main problem is there is not enough time for the reaction required for neutralization. as a result, vitamin c filter cannot really remove more than 50% of chlorine. The test result and video demonstrations by Vitamin C manufacturers are often very misleading.  These tests are usually performed using a glass of water and they test the material on the water by allowing nearly a minute for chlorine removal, ignoring the fact that water will only contact the Vitamin C medium for less than a second in a real shower experience. Vitamin C filter companies usually try to mask this fact by adding aroma to the shower and claiming other health benefits of Vitamin C for hair and skin.

Does Vitamin C shower filter vitalize your hair and skin?

According to Dr. Patricia Farris (Dermatologist) “While a Vitamin C-infused shower sounds good in theory, it will probably provide very little skin benefit,” says Farris. “Vitamin C must be formulated and packaged in a very careful way in order to stabilize it and prevent it from becoming oxidized [which makes it ineffective]. If it’s just sprayed out of the shower, the majority of it will be inactivated rather quickly as it is exposed to air.” Basically, what you get from your daily fruits should be enough to meet your Vitamin C needs. So the vitamin’s track record is flaky at best, and replacing your shower head to douse yourself in the powdered stuff is questionable and seems more like a gimmick than a health requirement.

Does Vitamin C really remove chloramine?

Chloramines are used instead of chlorine by some public water suppliers in the United States. It is important to note that Chloramines is not used by any water suppliers in the middle east. There are no conventional shower filters that will remove more than a small number of chloramines from your shower water.  While Vitamin C reduce chloramines slightly, it is highly dubious that they actually eliminate chloramines because the flow of water through a shower filter is too high to result in contact of the water with the filtering compound for a long enough duration of time.

is Vitamin C shower filter cheaper than KDF filter?

Even though the manufacturing cost of Vitamin C filters is much cheaper than the KDF filter. The selling price for Vitamin C cartridges is only slightly cheaper than KDF filters. However, KDF filters generally last 6 months based on two 10 min shower a day whereas Vitamin C filter only last 3 month for the same consumption which actually makes them more expensive.

What shower filter should I buy?

KDF shower filters are the most effective at removing chlorine. KDF filter lasts longer and it can remove “free chlorine” (chlorine that has not combined with other constituents in water) under heavy pressure with hot water. Hence KDF filter does not lose efficiency under hot water like activated carbon. Pure Blue Shower Filter uses a carefully measured mixture of KDF 55 and calcium sulfate specifically formulated to remove 98% percent of chlorine. Independent test results approved by the Dubai municipality clearly shows that we are able to achieve this goal (See Test Certificate).

If you are looking at purchasing another brand please make sure the shower filter uses KDF 55 as their core technology for chlorine removal and always ask for a test certificate before you proceed with purchasing.