Charcoal To One-micron Particle Filters: The Range Of Shower Head Filters

By Author: Scott Staudt
Total Articles: 91
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The cheapest shower filter on Google Products right now is a single, $10 filter - as advertised, it catches sulfur and chlorine in the water, keeping these chemicals from damaging skin and hair. But for only $379.90, you can remove sulfur, chlorine, as well as organic carbon compounds, and volatile organic compounds, as well as sediment particles one micron in diameter.

Very different filters, obviously. But, specifically, what does all this mean? Do they mean anything real, or do they just act as a lure for buyers? Or is there an actual meaning to them?

Total Organic Carbon (TOCs)

Simply put, Total Organic Carbon is used as a general metric of water quality. It is the total amount of carbon in the sample that is not in an inorganic compound. More generally, a high TOC, it's possible you might be getting showered with chemicals such as: detergents, decaying plant matter, herbicides, or pesticides. Mostly, public water systems succeed in keeping the TOC content as low as possible, although some of these chemicals can get through.

VOCs

Benzene or trichloroethylene in the drinking supply ...
... make up the measure known as VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds. Accidental spills or inattentive workers might introduce chemicals such as trichloroethylene, for instance, into the ground water. Gasoline or oil leaks might introduce benzene. However, these occurrences are generally isolated to old industrial and agricultural regions that use powerful chemicals, but water tests might be wise.

Chlorination

The old water treatment. This is usually used to treat and disinfect water at disinfection plants, and to make it suitable for drinking down the line. It's one of the most effective basic disinfectants, and if you've ever swam in a swimming pool, you've been exposed to a form of it - you might also have noticed a bit of irritation on your skin and damage to your hair if you stayed in for a while: that's the chlorine at work. Thankfully, even the cheapest charcoal shower filters will get rid of chlorine traces in the water.

Most often, municipal water sources remove TOCs and VOCs very well - paying $400 to remove harmless trace amounts borders on wasteful. Even then, the amount of chlorine in most bath water isn't enough to truly harm you - although if you take especial care of your hair, it might frustrate your efforts. If the worries are still sticking with you, however, and you can't find a way to push them aside, a far more inexpensive sixty dollar shower filter will do all that, besides restoring pH balance and culling heavy metals.
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