apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The water in NYC is extremely clean, and relatively free of chlorine. (Only added to water from the Croton system, but not the Delaware/Catskill waters.) I would suggest seeing a dermatologist before investing in water filtration.

There recently was an article in the Times I think, about the hazards of water for skin problems, someone investigated after models in Italy had skin problems and the only variable was water. The problem was minerals and chemicals in the water.

ClearFlow makes a filter specifically for bathroom faucets. They make models for the bathroom and kitchen, available in white or chrome. They are $18.99 at Amazon right now and last a year.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006TIWKA/sr=8-1/qid=1140710468/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7846613-6389668?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

there is a water filter for showers from jonathan antin, yes the star of bravo tv's blowout. he had the idea in an episode from last season. it is part of his hair care line sold at sephora here in new york.
i'm sure that 100 years from now people will ask, how did they live in that toxic environment back then?

Hey I remember that Eureka moment from Blow out (one of the few reality shows I watched). His water got cut off so he had to shower with bottled mineral water and his hair felt amazing after he had finished drying and smushing his Dirt product into it. At least that's what he said and I believe him.

NY water is pretty good but NY pipes are another thing. depending on how old your building is the water pipes that you have may be old. my building is old (1920's); i put a filter on my kitchen faucet as the water was all fogged up with crud and it tasted strange. now that i have the filter on the water clear and tastes fine. I also put a filter on my shower-head. the water coming out was still so hard that my hair was falling out like crazy. now that I have the filter on my shower my hair stays on my head (mostly). I'm sure this is all from the junk that's built up in the pipes over who-knows-how-many years. i have not experienced skin problems from washing my face with water from the sink but i am concerned none-the-less. My sink is very very tiny and I've not found a filter small enough for it. the search is on.

Yes, yes. It's not the cleanliness of the water I question, it is definitely the griminess of the pipes. For example, when ever I turn on my bathtub water it comes out brown for a few seconds. Does anyone else have this problem? I then turn on the shower which I use a filter for, but this few seconds of brown in the morning is still pretty unpleasant. Plus once I gave my tub a good scrub until it was sparkling white, put a new bath mat down, and went away for a month. Didn't use the tub or anything, but the drip of the brown water turned my bath brown. I don't know what's going on in those pipes but whatever it is, it reeks. The bath mat smelled like sewage when I lifted it up to throw it away!

Occasionally I had the brown water problem in the tub in my old apartment. When I spoke with the landlord he said it was the city doing something with the water, not the pipes (in an 80 yr old building). The only reason I believed him was because it was random; much of the time the water ran clear and then it would be brown for a few days. I moved and no longer have that problem.

It's true, if the city uses some mysterious pipe in your neighborhood it will make your water brown. But all your water will be brown in these cases: tub, sink, toilet water, kitchen sink, etc. It happened to me once in the same apartment. I've been at my apartment for three year so I'm pretty sure it's the cruddy pipes. I've tried cleaning inside the bathtub faucet but this doesn't really do anything. Accept turn my stomach a little bit.

the tap-on brown-water thing --> you need a plumber
it's different from a filtration issue
I had that in my kitchen. The plumber replaced a joint or something (I don't actually remember) to fix it.

If city work is the problem, you have ALOT of brown water, and so do your neighbors in the building next door.
That *does* actually happen, when they do major replace-the-mains work.

Continuing from the OT 115, about what we can't live without...

I am loving the whole ready to drink/running water thing here in NYC.

Opening the tap, putting a glass under it, and drinking is so much easier than waiting for a donkey to get my water, then putting the water into buckets, then into large plastic storage containers, then waiting for the mud to settle for 1 day, then skimming off the clear water, then boiling all the water needed for drinking, then letting the water cool, then pouring all of the water through a filter.

We are fortunate that our water doesn’t cause dysentery. But I do worry about all of the chemicals in our environment and the long term effects of pollution on our health.

I am fortunate enough to live in a city with some of the best water in the country, but I still filter... basically just with a Brita pitcher, though, for flavor. Tap-mounted filters do a much better job of removing actual impurities.

If you have the average bathroom, the cleanest part of the bathroom is the surface of the toilet seat, and the dirtiest, by far, is the sink drain (and presumably the shower drain).

Before even consulting a dermatologist... I don't know what Telephasik is using on hir face, and this isn't a beauty/skincare site. But there are a few areas to think about. What are you washing with? What are you drying with? How often are you washing and changing your pillowcases? How often do you go to bed with dirty hair? You know your lifestyle better than we do, but I doubt it's your water.

Try Cetaphil cleanser, or Purpose cleanser. Try always drying with a clean towel, or at least change towels every day (the ultimate is paper towels, I was told by a dermatologist, but many people do not want to generate that much waste). Bacteria can build up quickly and nastily in damp towels that sit around in a bathroom for a week - it won't kill you, but it can break you out! Make sure you wash your hair before bed - not in the morning, and make sure you wash your pillowcases frequently. Never sleep in makeup. That should decrease the frequency of breakouts, if they're dirt-related. If you already do all of these things, then I agree that seeing a dermatologist would be the next step.

Also, if it were the water causing your face breakouts, well, you'd probably be breaking out on the rest of your body, too. Unless you don't shower at home (IE some ppl do their showering at the gym).

Wow, this is better skin care adive than I get from reading Glamour magazine. The reason why I think it's my bathroom sink water (or pipes rather) that is causing my face break out is because this generally happens when I've been using that unfiltered bathroom sink water for a while. I spend months at a time away from my apt and don't really had a problem in other places. I ordered the ClearFlow bathroom sink filter so we'll see.

im sooooo fat i think it's because of my water. cause i just moves into my new house in Canada, it's so beautiful, and im gaining weight and i a vegitarean. what should i do?

Jonathan's Beauty Filter is just a repacked Aquasana AQ-4100 right down to the "free" shower head which has been on the market for some time and sold for much less(about >$30 less).

Apparently, his claimed "team of researchers" went shopping on the internet, lol.

Dear Telephasik,

I too have been in search of a bathroom sink water filter and have found one! It's called the Aquapure PRO PureQuik and can be found at www.santeforhealth.com. It fits bathroom or kitchen sinks and will filter BOTH hot and cold water! Finally!!! :o)

#1SugarPlum

I use the Aquasana AQ4000 under sink filter in my bathroom, and it works great. It's just like the AQ4000, but it comes with everything you need to install it under your sink. (I don't have much counter space in my bathroom!) This filter is small enough to fit under just about any bathroom sink.

I'm glad I got the second filter for my bathroom. Sometimes I have problems with my gums (inflammation), and using the water filter in my bathroom seems to have helped. I also use it to fill up my waterpik with filtered water.