Until recently, I didn’t think I cared much about showerheads. Familiarity often leads to fondness, and as a renter, I’ve mostly been content with whatever nozzle was already installed in the bathroom when I moved in.
That is until I moved to Los Angeles, a city with notably hard water that, in my case, dried my hair and led to tangling. I started searching for an in-shower solution, which led me to buying a pricey filtered showerhead that, ultimately, didn’t work out.
As I was writing a story about shower filters and examining my current shower setup earlier this year, I realized I’d grown attached to the fixture I bought a year ago to replace that one-trick filtered showerhead: a five-setting workhorse that is Wirecutter’s top-pick showerhead.
At the time, I chose the Delta 5-Setting Showerhead. It doesn’t have a filter, but at about $50, it was the cheapest we recommend—and less than half the cost of the filtered showerhead that served me a nice helping of buyer’s remorse. I installed the new fixture easily and didn’t give it much more thought.
Top pick
Surprisingly satisfying and practical, we prefer this showerhead over competitors’ luxury models for its basic operation and convenient features.
Good designs fly under the radar because they work well. Often it is their absence, rather than their presence, that convinces you of their brilliance. On a recent trip, a hotel’s so-called luxury rain shower reminded me how feeble a rinse can be—and what a toll that trickle can take on your hair.
I have often longed for a big, beautiful bathroom; my little rental doesn’t even have space for a tub. But it was a true pleasure to return home from that trip and stand under the Delta 5-Setting Showerhead 52535, which lets me toggle smoothly between a powerful spray and gentle shower (and three other settings—yes, I use them all). I am grateful. I am home. And now, I love my shower.
I am not sure how such an affordable showerhead manages to pack in more control than models twice its price, but it does. The five settings include a broad, drenching rain-shower-like spray that is lively without being ticklish or trickly.
The remaining settings shoot water through concentric rings of apertures, each with a progressively more focused, denser spray. My favorites are the widest rinsing spray, which helps me shower quickly, and the tightest, strongest hair rinse spray, which feels fantastic on the scalp.
The last setting works as a pause, reducing the flow to all but a burble from the centermost ring. This saves water for tasks like shaving without stuttering the temperature. In my tub-less, small-footprint shower stall, this setting has saved me from many a contortion (and probably many a slipping injury).
The five settings are intuitive to switch between using a toggle that protrudes from behind the showerhead. I appreciate that you can easily swivel the head in its socket to position the toggling handle to your liking. The showerhead itself is a simple disc shape, similar to a hockey puck, though more elegant in its functionality than that sounds—understated, sleek, and timeless.
I learned the hard way that not every showerhead is easy to clean. But the Delta showerhead has a shallow profile, so you can easily submerge it, as we recommend, to remove stubborn mineral deposits, which can clog spray apertures over time. The polished chrome design is mostly seamless, so it wipes clean without too much elbow grease. (It also comes in brushed stainless steel, bronze, and matte black finishes.)
The Delta showerhead doesn’t have a hose for more-ranging, directed spraying. When I want to clean my shower and douse water in areas where the stream of the showerhead can’t reach, I switch to a focused spray setting, which quickly fills a bucket, and this works fine for me. For about $50, this showerhead has features that many pricier fixtures do not (like that pause setting) and comes with Delta’s limited lifetime warranty.
I use my Delta showerhead with a filter that I purchased separately, and between the two, my hair feels well rinsed and healthy. I fully expect to take this setup with me to my next home, though I hope that bathroom has a tub. Too bad I can’t put the showerhead in my suitcase.
This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Builder.
