Is Tap Water Really Safe for Bathing and Showering?

Any TV viewer has seen advertisements for some sort of transdermal patch. Normally that patch contains a medication. The person who wears that patch receives a slow and steady administration of that medication. Yet the TV viewers who are familiar with such ads seldom think to ask this question: "Is tap water safe for bathing and showering?"

Few people ask that question, although few people pass-up the chance to enjoy a hot shower. During a hot shower, the pores in the skin allow into the body any chemicals that might hit the skin. If the water from the tap contains any harmful chemicals, then those chemicals can enter the body while some human takes a hot shower.

The above paragraph highlights the reason that every homeowner should ask this question: "Is tap water safe for bathing and showering?" After all, even some of the chemicals that are meant to make water safe to drink can damage the body, if they enter the body through the pores of the skin.

Exposure to chlorine, for example, can cause cancer. The time that most humans spend in a bath of shower allows a generous amount of chlorine to enter the body. In fact, the body can get more chlorine through the skin than it can by having chlorinated water sent down the esophagus.

Moreover, chlorine represents only one of the thousands of chemicals that are in the typical sample of tap water. A showerhead or bathtub faucet allows water with at least 2,100 different chemicals into the tub or shower stall, if it has not been equipped with a suitable filter

In addition, a hot shower causes the formation of huge amounts of water vapor. That vapor contains all of the chemicals that are in the water that passes through the faucet or showerhead. If that water contains chemicals that have gone undetected in a municipal treatment plant, then the person who steps from the bath or shower inhales those same chemicals.

When chemicals are inhaled, they pass immediately from the air sac into the blood stream. The inhalation of chemicals poses a greater danger than the drinking of water that contains those same chemicals. That fact illustrates the significance of the question "Is tap water safe for bathing and showering?"

This question, "Is tap water safe for bathing and showering?" calls attention to a less than obvious reason for purchasing a water filter. Too often, a homeowner simply buys a filter for the kitchen faucet. Too often, a homeowner thinks only about the water that residents and guests are apt to drink. Too few homeowners ever find it necessary to ponder this question: "Is tap water safe for bathing and showering?"

Once a homeowner has realized the importance of that question, then that homeowner appreciates the value of a well-designed filter on a showerhead or a bathtub faucet. If a homeowner should chose to purchase such a filter, then that homeowner ought to consider buying an activated carbon filter

When used in combination with ion exchange filtration and micron filtration, the activated carbon filter does the most effective job of removing unwanted chemicals from the water in a home plumbing system. That combination of filters creates water that is both safe to drink, and also safe enough to stream into a shower stall, or to flow into a bath tub.