A monograph on ten minutes of your day
Whatmakesanincredibleshowerhead?
Nobody plans to ask. But you are here, and we have thought about very little else for years.
First, the wrong answers
- The price tag.
- The brushed-nickel finish.
- Eleven spray modes you will try once.
- A rain can the size of a manhole cover.
A shower head has one job, and it is none of these.
The answer
It is the water. It was always the water.
The best shower head in the world is the one that turns whatever pressure your plumbing can offer into a dense, brisk, even blanket of water: edge to edge, with no cold hollow in the middle of your back. That is the entire job. It is astonishing how few fixtures do it.
The object that does it
One piece of Italian polycarbonate, and no apologies.
It is called the Siroflex Ultra. Molded in Italy from LEXAN, the plastic trusted for football helmets, in a single piece that cannot rust, pit, or flake. Itthreads onto a shower arm by hand and unscrews the same way for a vinegar bath. It offers exactly one spray mode, because exactly one of them is correct.
Nobody advertises it. Somebody hands you one, and every other shower in your life quietly gets worse.
For decades it has traveled by word of mouth: flea market demo rigs, well-showered houseguests, travelers who refuse to gamble on hotel plumbing and pack one in their luggage.
And the answer costs
$12.95
Not a sale price. The price. Wereviewed it properly anyway, with years of daily use and our own measurements on the way.
You've found your answer.