Comfort

Aquatica / Eco-Stream shower head

We asked our triallists how much they liked the feel of the shower on their hair and body and asked them to choose descriptive words for the feel of the spray. Most people who liked the feel of the shower on their body also liked it on their hair.

Overall

• The Aquatica/Eco-Stream (low-flow setting) was rated highest overall for comfort. All our triallists “liked it a lot” or rated it “OK”. One summed it up as: “Enjoyed the shower: wide range of easy-to-use settings.”
• The Englefield was rated next-most comfortable – everyone “liked it a lot" or rated it “OK”. One summary comment was: “Liked this one. Hope it’s eco-friendly.”
• Least liked was the Feltonmix (high-flow setting). Half the triallists described the shower as “hard” or “needle-like”. One comment was: “This shower head is just not pleasant at this high flow rate.”

Effectiveness

We asked our triallists how effective each shower head was at wetting their hair and body – and how well it showered water over their bodies. We also asked them how effective it was at removing shampoo from their hair and soap or body wash from their bodies.

Overall

• The Methven and Aquatica/Eco-Stream (high-flow setting) were rated the most effective heads. They both received positive ratings (“very effective”, “fairly effective”, or “OK”) from all triallists and no negative comments.
• Next most effective was the Englefield. It had slightly fewer positive comments – but no negative ones.
• Least effective was the Foreno.

Buying decisions

We asked the triallists to imagine they were about to buy a shower head and to rate how likely they’d be to purchase each model. We then repeated the question – after telling them the shower head would save $100 a year in hot-water bills.

• The Aquatica/Eco-Stream and Methven were the shower heads most likely to be purchased.
• The models most likely not to be purchased were the Flexispray Pulsar and Foreno.
• The other heads were somewhere in between.

Self-dismantling
The Flexispray Pulsar fell apart when one triallist tried to change its shower pattern. We replaced the model and no further problems were experienced.