The best filtered shower heads in Australia

Filtered shower heads promise chlorine reduction and a fancy spray in one piece. Some are decent. Most are a small filter cartridge stuffed into a plastic head, and the filter runs out long before the head does.

Questions to ask before buying a filtered shower head in Australia

• Head or inline filter? Inline usually wins: it keeps the head you like and the cartridge is larger. A filtered head puts a smaller cartridge in the head, so it runs out sooner.
• Is my water chlorinated or chloraminated? Ask your utility. Sydney Water says it adds chlorine; other utilities use chloramine, and vitamin C is the media that handles both.
• How much chlorine is there to remove? The national guidelines give typical levels of 0.2 to 0.5 mg/L, with an odour threshold of about 0.6 mg/L.
• I rent. Can I fit one? Victoria lets renters swap to a low-flow shower head without permission, as long as they keep the original. Check that the one you buy is low-flow, and keep what you took off.
• What happens if it fails after the warranty? The ACCC says the consumer guarantee of acceptable quality usually still applies after a warranty expires.

Two ways to filter a shower

Inline filters are a cartridge housing that screws onto the shower arm; your existing shower head screws onto the filter. The Philips and Quoss units in our shower filter guide are this type. The cartridge is big enough to last three to six months, and you keep the shower head you already own.

Filtered shower heads put a smaller cartridge inside the head itself. They are cheaper up front, easier to sell, and usually worse value: the cartridge is small, the replacement is proprietary, and when the head’s spray plate scales up you are replacing the filter housing too.

What either type can and cannot do

Both reduce chlorine when the media is KDF or vitamin C. Neither softens hard water, whatever the packaging says. Neither is a health device, and we do not credit skin or hair claims. If your supply uses chloramine rather than chlorine, only vitamin C media works well; see the chloramine guide.

The picks

Buy an inline unit. The Philips 3-stage is our pick for most of Australia. The Quoss is the pick where the utility uses chloramine. If you want a new shower head as well, buy the filter and a head separately: two good products beat one compromised one.

At Bunnings, the one filtered shower head not sold through a Marketplace seller is the Quoss Aroma Sense Q: $137 for the head, or $172 with a hose and wall bracket, both Special Orders (checked 21 Oct 2026). It takes the same vitamin C refills as the Quoss inline filter. See shower filters at Bunnings for everything else it lists.