Shower water and your hair, in New Zealand homes
Count how often you wash your hair, and how it feels, before and after you change your shower water.
A simple baseline makes any change easier to see.
Shower water is part of every wash. If your hair feels drier, frizzier or greasier while your products stay the same, it can be useful to compare the water too.
Can shower water change how your hair feels?
Your hair meets your local water every wash. If your hair changed after a move to a new flat or a new town, compare the two supplies and count your washes.
What is in the water you wash your hair with in New Zealand?
Your water supplier uses free chlorine. It behaves differently in warm shower water than in a cold glass.
Watercare doses about 1.2 mg/L of chlorine at its Ardmore plant, and free chlorine leaves solution readily in hot water.
Watercare, Ardmore chlorine information sheet, 11 June 2024; Taumata Arowai. Read 3 October 2026.
The difference is how long the contact lasts. Nothing is shown happening to either, because nothing has been measured.
Why hair holds water longer
Hair is porous and remains wet after showering, extending contact with the water used to wash it.
This describes contact time and does not establish a cosmetic or medical outcome.
Why vitamin C rather than carbon
New Zealand suppliers use free chlorine. Review the evidence for the exact filtration medium and product.
Ascorbic acid reacts chemically with chlorine compounds. See how Vitae Infusion works and review the evidence and limits on the chlorine and vitamin C page.
What else changes how your hair feels
Heat styling, product changes, hardness and location can all affect how hair feels. Change one factor at a time so you can compare.
Heat styling
Frequent high-heat styling is another factor worth testing before changing your shower setup.
How to tell whether that is your answer
If the change lines up with a new tool or a new routine rather than with a move or a season, start there. It is free to test and it takes a fortnight.
A product changed under you
Shampoo gets reformulated without the bottle changing.
How to tell whether that is your answer
If the timing lines up with a repurchase rather than with a move, that is a cheaper thing to test first. Buy the previous formulation if you can still find it.
If your story is limescale
Chalky film, crust on the tapware, hair that feels coated. That is hardness, not disinfectant.
And in Wellington and Christchurch it is very unlikely to be what you have
Limescale and the disinfectant are two different problems, and ascorbic acid does nothing to the first one.
Standard shower filters do not soften water, so they should not be expected to remove a genuine hardness issue.
If it is the same everywhere you go
If your hair behaves the same across different water supplies, another part of your routine may be more useful to investigate.
Why that one is close to conclusive
Water changes between those places. Something that does not change is a better lead, and it is worth chasing before you spend anything here.
If you have been reading that hard water is wrecking your hair, check first whether you have any. Christchurch and Wellington are soft, and Auckland ranges from soft to moderately hard by source. Your supplier is the number that matters, not your country.
Count your washes before and after
Wash frequency gives you a simple measure to track. Record how often you wash your hair now, then compare it after changing one part of your routine.
Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere. It is a note to self, not a prediction.
Keep the comparison personal and practical
Put that number somewhere you will find it again, with today's date next to it.
If you change anything about your shower, look at it again in two weeks and see whether the number moved.
What the result means
SUHAE does not promise a change in wash frequency. This simple comparison helps you judge the result using your own routine.
What people report
Australian reviews of shower filters, other brands included, quoted as written. One person, one head of hair, one shower each.
From someone who used to wash their hair every day, I can now go 3 to 4 days without washing.
One reviewer's own words, Australian shower filter reviews, August 2026.The water over the years has progressively got harder.
One reviewer's own words, Australian shower filter reviews, August 2026. Worth reading next to the hardness figures above, which is why we left it in.The New Zealand facts What we can source about New Zealand water, each with its source.
- Free chlorine in every town supply
- Christchurch: chlorinated since March 2018
- Wellington: 18 to 45 mg/L, soft
- Auckland: soft to moderately hard
- No chloramine on record, says Taumata Arowai
- 225,000+ people not on town supply (2019)
- Most town water soft
- Your supplier publishes your figure
- Hardness and chlorine are separate things
Chlorine is what most New Zealand showers have in common. Hardness depends on your supplier.
Where those facts came from
Taumata Arowai (9 August 2024), Christchurch City Council, Tiaki Wai, Watercare and Water New Zealand, read 3 October 2026.
The most common pattern in that set is not a rave. It is a reversal, and it turns up almost word for word across different brands and different states: I was skeptical and held off for a long time, wish I had done it sooner.
What the evidence supports for hair
On colour
"Colour fades faster" turns up often enough to mention, and your colourist probably told you it was the sun.
SUHAE does not claim that shower filtration prevents colour fade. Sun exposure, washing, heat and product choice are also relevant factors.
Hair outcomes vary by person and routine
Customer reports are mixed and do not establish a measured hair outcome. Product claims remain limited to the published water, media and flow results.
Our guide to choosing one is the better next read.
Knowing when the cartridge is spent
No life figure is published for it, and one belonging to a different product is not going to be borrowed for it.
Nor is there an indicator. Nothing will tell you the day it stops doing anything.
Which is a problem you can solve for a few dollars
Free chlorine strips from a pool shop, read every few weeks against the same chart. That protocol lives here, written out step by step.
A reading that has drifted back is your answer, and unscrewing it takes about a minute. Your own head goes straight back on.
We hold no NSF/ANSI 177 certification
Suhae is not certified to that standard.
If a certification is what you are shopping on
Make every brand on your list name the standard it holds and produce the certificate for it.
The number is the part that matters. Without one, a standard on a page is a word.
Count one change, then compare
Note your wash count, keep the rest of your routine the same, and compare after you fit a filter. The NZ Water Guide shows what your supplier uses.
SUHAE Universal fits between your shower arm and existing shower head, with three cartridge options for different preferences.
Suhae Universal is made in Korea and sold by an Australian company you can check. Lifetime warranty on the housing; cartridges are replaceable. Terms.