Most makers of shower water filters are a bit circumspect about releasing lab test data or getting their products certified by international testing bodies. Not Weddell. As of August 2025, the Weddell Duo is the only US shower water filter I’ve obtained that received certification for free chlorine removal from the NSF international testing organization. The Duo is also certified by NSF to remove lead from pipes, and Weddell cites third-party testing by IAPMO R&T showing that the showerhead removes PFAs, though this is not accompanied by any certification.

If your city water uses chlorine and not chloramine (check here to verify), this is probably the filter I’d get. The Duo is an inline filter, which means you screw it in between your pipe and your existing showerhead. It’s not overly pretty—a bit like your shower got skewered by a fuel rod—but it is lab-tested and certified, and the horizontal design means it won’t change the height of your shower much. Each filter is certified to remove the lion’s share of free chlorine over the course of 8,000 gallons. (An average household uses 350 gallons per person each month.) Still, according to our testing, the Duo was not as effective as the top-rated Canopy, Hydroviv, or Afina filters at removing chloramine, the substance used in more than half of major metropolitan areas. New York, Chicago, Seattle, Detroit, and Phoenix use chlorine to disinfect their drinking water. This is the filter I’d likely favor in those cities, if free chlorine were my main concern.

Canopy was one of a minority of showerhead brands I tested that was able to bring my chloramine-treated water’s total measurable chlorine down to undetectable levels, over multiple days of testing and at all water temperatures. The filtration media are a mix of multiple substances known to be effective at reducing chlorine: KDF-55, calcium sulfite, and granular activated carbon made from coconut shells.

Canopy is a handsome and elegantly designed showerhead, whose thoughtfulness often shows up in the small details. The stream is adjustable on three settings, from a satisfyingly broad and even spray to a punishing middle jet. Installation was tool-free, and also the most hitch-free I encountered. Filter cartridge replacement is even easier and doesn’t require unscrewing the showerhead. Canopy offers aromatherapy options from diffusers to felt air fresheners you can hang from the top of your showerhead and refresh with essential oils—a clear play to turn its shower “experience” into a wellness-based lifestyle brand. Heck, even the packaging is quite pleasant, if also excessive, designed for the era of influencer TikTok unboxings.

But it’s also easy to appreciate the Canopy showerhead’s simple efficacy and the refreshing level of care taken in its design. Filters will set you back $27 to $37 once every three months—a nonnegligible expense, but at the low end for similar devices. Note, however, that Canopy—like pretty much all of the new wave of filtered-showerhead makers—declares in marketing materials that its showerheads exceed NSF standards for chlorine removal but did not provide evidence of independent lab testing upon request. My own testing results showed the filter is exceedingly effective out of the box. Two months into the filter’s life, this effectiveness had drifted down closer to filtering out more like half of the total chlorine. This is better than most filters we tested, but not as good as our top pick, Rorra.

This bathtub filter from Canopy is a concept I hadn’t seen before—essentially a silicone sleeve that fits over a bathtub spout, so you can filter bathwater the same way you might do your shower. It’s a clever solution to the variability of bathtub fixtures. Installation isn’t too difficult: The silicone sleeve stretched quite easily over my older, bulky bathtub spout.

Like Canopy’s shower filters, the bathtub filter uses a mix of activated carbon, KDF-55, and calcium sulfite. Most of the marketing is geared toward baby’s bathtime—and Canopy’s website shows troubling images of baby rashes and baby skin irritation that could theoretically be prevented.

But bathtub spouts are a difficult problem to solve. And my testing of the resulting bathwater showed worse filtering results than Canopy’s filtered showerheads, likely because the system’s not leakproof. If your water pressure outstrips the filter’s flow capacity, unfiltered water will leak out into the bathtub. On my bathtub in particular, which struggles to limit water pressure, the filter was about half as effective at filtering chlorine as Canopy’s showerhead filter. This said, half is better than zero—and I haven’t yet found other bathtub filters better than this one. (You could, however, fill a bathtub using a filtered showerhead from Canopy, which successfully filters all chlorine.)

OK, this isn’t a shower filter. But it’s relevant. This bathroom sink filter from Filterbaby is designed to solve a very specific problem. A lot of people wash their faces in the bathroom sink as part of their skincare regimen. But the water they’re using contains chlorine, which is bad for skin—and especially bad for sensitive skin. Enter this funny-looking thing (which actually installs reasonably handsomely, if bulbously.)

The sink filter from Rorra is able to remove almost all total chlorine from water in your bathroom sink, according to WIRED’s testing—an effectiveness that will, however, depend strongly on water pressure and flow rate. At full blast in my sink, the filter was about 80 percent effective. When I turned it down a bit, that effectiveness climbed to something closer to 98 percent. To extend the life of your filter when you’re not washing your face, you can actually toggle between using the filter and not—an interesting and thoughtful touch.

This said, it’s still an extra and kinda bulky thing on your bathroom sink. And installation is oddly involved: You must remove your faucet’s pre-installed aerator (and maybe discover some disheartening particulates trapped inside the old thing, blech.) Then you’ll have to sort through which of the 10 included adapters, and multiple O-rings, are the right ones for your sink. It’s hardly brain science, but if you’re not mechanically inclined, you may in fact want help with this one—especially because instructions and tutorial videos are only moderately clear.

Filter replacement is recommended once every three months, but in practice this should depend quite a bit on how much you use your bathroom sink. WIRED will keep testing, and fill you in on actual needs in practice.

Most filtered shower fixtures, by their nature, are bulky. They have to be, because they need to house a big filter with zinc and copper inside. Afina turned this bug into a feature by leaning hard into its size, offering a broad, flat-fronted shower face that gave the most soothing spray—and satisfyingly forceful water jets—of all the filtered showerheads I tried. It’s not adjustable: It is what it is. But I quite like what it is.

Afina’s two-stage chlorine filter is also as effective as any of the filtered showerheads we tested, reducing total chlorine levels to undetectable amounts when it’s new. After being used for a month and some change, this effectiveness had started to drift downward considerably. Afina recommends filter replacement every two months at $40 a pop ($29 with a subscription). Chloramine filtering effectiveness did drop swiftly after a month or so, so I’d probably suggest this as well. Installation is tool-free and simple, and filter replacement requires just a quick twist of the wrist. Filters can be assessed easily by color to determine whether replacement is needed. Like your existing showerhead? Afina also offers an inline filter, though we have yet to test it.

Hydroviv is a water filter company of long standing, and its KDF-55, calcium sulfite, and catalyzed carbon showerhead ranks among the few shower filters I’ve tested that was able to filter total chlorine levels down to undetectable levels in a chloramine-treated water system. Hydroviv suggests filter replacements once every six months, a longer span than comparable shower filters such as Canopy or Afina; that said, its $75 filters cost double or more what other filters do, and I noted significant loss of efficacy after four months. As with most makers of shower filters, requests to see independent lab testing results were not answered by company representatives.

But Hydroviv also adds an extra claim, namely that it contains “bacteriostatic” filter media. What’s this mean? It means that icky and potentially health-damaging mycobacteria are less likely to grow inside it. This is difficult to assess without access to lab results, but it’s hard not to like the notion of fewer bacteria colonies in your life.

A good number of filtered showerheads claim to remove microplastics. But the funny thing is, most of their filters are made with a significant amount of plastic. Take that paradox as you will. But English brand Curo uses far less plastic than any other brand we’ve found, aside from a bit of polyester in the filter’s mesh—and according to founder Harry Bilby, it’s working on getting rid of even this tiny bit of plastic.

Like our top-pick, Rorra, Curo’s three-layer shower filter also reduced total chlorine to undetectible levels in our testing. And in a rare gesture, its founder also shared third-party lab testing results showing that the filter is effective on free chlorine levels for 8,000 gallons at a high flow rate. The catch for those in the United States is that Curo is a handheld showerhead that doesn’t come with a hose and adapter for American shower pipes. And so Americans will have to figure that out, if they don’t already have a handheld showerhead setup. If you do have a handheld showerhead, just screw it off and screw on the Curo. Note that the showerhead itself is priced lower than other brands on this list, but filter replacement is more expensive.