We often receive queries from people keen to gain a better understanding of whether a water softener will help them with their skin conditions.
Whether skin is normal, sensitive or a condition such as eczema is present, soft water may help improve its condition.
Why?
Scum can be a nightmare to clean, due to it not being very soluble. It is even less so at higher temperatures.
Think about how this relates to your skin. Soap residues are a skin irritant. Hard water forms more residue in the first place and also is ineffective at washing these residues away.
To make matters worse, scale and scum aren’t just lurking in your shower rose, kettle heating element and on your skin. They are also present in bed linen, nightwear, and normal clothing which further adds to the prolonged exposure to these skin irritants.
Our Research
Currently we are participating in research that we believe will draw more conclusive evidence that soft water does help eczema.
A study has already been carried out that showed out of 7,500 school age children, eczema is 50% more common in primary school children living in hard water areas than soft water. Age and social class were deemed to be unrelated. You can read about this on our eczema page.
We are confident that the results of the current trial will be positive. The study has been running since Spring 2007 and will finish in Autumn this year. Rest assured that when the results are released I will be blogging about it!