The 10 Best Rain Shower Heads
Special Honors
Kohler 14” Rainhead Designed for a shower that simulates a warm summer downpour, this shower head is built with Kohler’s proprietary Katalyst air-induction technology, which mixes air and water to produce large droplets and provide you with an invigorating experience. It’s made to withstand mineral buildup, and has a solid brass construction for reliability and durability. It delivers a maximum flow rate of 2-1/2 gallons per minute, and comes in your choice of polished chrome, polished nickel, brushed nickel, or brushed brass. us.kohler.com
Bath Select For over 28 years Bath Select has been offering quality bathroom fixtures at competitive prices. Their eclectic selection of showerheads are available in every shape, size, design, and finish you could imagine, and can be combined with their shower panels, motion sensor faucets, body massage shower jets, hydromassage whirlpool bathtubs, saunas, and much more. bathselect.com
Editor's Notes
May 04, 2021:
With a larger surface area than a regular showerhead, these rainfall models are designed to provide a good balance between pressure and water flow. Their greater number of spray nozzles allow for shoulder-to-shoulder coverage without the necessity of using a pump, and most can be installed as a direct replacement without any costly upgrades to the existing pipework. In this update, we made minimal changes to the ranking, as our previous selections were still deemed to be high-quality options that cover a wide range of aesthetic and water system requirements.
If your outlet is ceiling mounted, then the Rozin Sprayer, the Shower Maxx Premium, the Water Point 8 Inch, and the Kohler Contemporary Round are all suitable options, with the Rozin Sprayer being the largest at one-foot square. The Embather System includes a 90-degree mounting arm that allows it to be installed on the ceiling or on the wall. Similar to the Dream Spa Combo and the Moen Engage, it also comes with a handheld sprayer, too, which is great for other tasks such as bathing kids or pets, and for cleaning in hard-to-reach areas. The Moen Velocity and the Kohler Forte are two notable options as they both have a choice of spray patterns, including pulsating massage. They both come in a variety of finishes, making it easy to pair them with your existing faucets and hardware.
December 15, 2020:
Today another model comes on board from Kohler, a well-known name in faucets, sinks, showers, and toilets. The Kohler Forte provides you with full-coverage, pulsating massage, and silk settings, so you’ll have an option whether you’re in the mood for an invigorating shower or a relaxing one. It’s easy to change the settings, too, thanks to a handy thumb tab. This sturdy shower head is resistant to mineral buildup, and you can choose from among gold, chrome, nickel, or bronze finishes. Its easy to adjust, thanks to its pivoting ball joint, and matching accessories are sold separately that include towel and toilet paper racks. It joins the Kohler Contemporary Round, which boasts a slim, sleek design that will look nice with any decor, and its sturdy nozzles also resist the buildup of mineral deposits. This round model has a diameter of 12 inches and mounts directly on to the ceiling.
If you’re into LED faucets, check out the newly added Rozin Sprayer for your shower, which is sure to help wake you up in the morning, thanks to its vibrant lights. They’re a convenient way of knowing how warm the water is before you get into the shower, since they shine blue when it’s cool, green when it’s warm, and red when it’s hot. The fixture measures one square foot and is covered in 289 resilient silicone nozzles. We kept the two existing Moen models in prominent positions among our selection. The Moen Velocity provides an invigorating, massage-style experience. It’s resistant to flaking and corrosion, and has a self-pressurized design for consistent flow. You can choose from among four attractive colors to match your bathroom decor. The versatile Moen Engage offers a stationary head and a handheld one, and you can choose from among six sprayer settings to suit your preference. This durable choice sports a finish that resists water spots and a metal hose that shouldn’t suffer from kinks. Leaving the list today is the Aquafaucet LED, another light-up model, which is not available at this time.
July 02, 2019:
When renovating a bathroom, it's a great way to increase your home's value and quality counts. That's why our two top choices are predictably from trusted names in the field. The Kohler Contemporary Round and the Moen Velocity have a higher price point than some of the other options, but they are built of solid metal that will last for many years without the possibility of cracking or flaking, plus they are styled to enhance a high-end bathroom.
We included plenty of quality choices for those who are more worried about budget than re-sale value, for someone who isn't investing in a luxury bathroom, but still wants that rainfall experience. They are also a great choice for guest bathrooms that don't get as much usage. We included units like the Moen Engage that aren't as sleek and modern looking with a handheld attachment, but very useful for the disabled, elderly, or bathing children.
Shower In The Rain
Still, many of the heads on our list have adjustable elements like air intakes for increased pressure or limiters for the number of openings used in each head.
There is only one occasion I can recall in which I actually took a shower in the rain. I was on a camping trip with my scout troop when I was about 11, and when the skies opened up the lot of us stripped down to our birthday suits, grabbed our respective bars of soap and found little clearings in the woods where the most rain was getting through.
I can say with confidence that the experience wasn't quite as relaxing as those provided by these rain shower heads. In the wilderness, it's more about the thrill of running around the woods naked in a torrential downpour. There's also a lot of mud to contend with, so even if the top three quarters of your body gets squeaky clean, you stay pretty messy from the knees down.
What the shower heads on our list here do, rather than get your blood pumping and your feet muddy, is distribute the water flow in your shower across a greater area with a slow, steady, pressurized stream. Instead of sending the whole flow through a more limited amount of openings with the express intention of maximizing water pressure, these heads place a premium on comfort in the shower over most other considerations.
Still, many of the heads on our list have adjustable elements like air intakes for increased pressure or limiters for the number of openings used in each head. They all install with tremendous ease, as well, as they utilize the water lines already in place. Some require a modicum of manipulation from the line on outward, but all of them can be installed with household tools and next to no knowledge of plumbing.
Hanging On Under Pressure
Considering how important the shower is, how much time we spend in there, and how much we rely on the experience to start our days off on the right foot, I feel like the majority of my peers are content to use whatever shower head they found hanging there when they moved into their respective houses and apartments.
It's a shame really, that we don't take more pride in our facilities. Perhaps it's rooted in how few people actually see the inside of our shower, that we prioritize a million other little status symbols around the house over things like nice shower heads.
Some of these head systems are have a great deal of complexity, allowing you to customize your showering experience like never before.
I'd like to suggest that we start a little revolution here. Let's all agree to put status on the back burner and concentrate, instead, on a increase in self care. To that end, you must pick among these shower heads, and I say we do that with a focus on self care.
While each of the heads on this list is easy enough to install, there are some that are certainly easier than others. If ease of installation is at the top of your list of criteria, look for a rain shower head that looks the most like any old hose-and-head system you see everywhere. With one of these systems, you can literally just unscrew the hose from the incoming water line, and replace it with the new hose. These hoses are all designed with the clips for the head attached, so once the hose is in place the head hangs right on it.
The problem with these kinds of rain heads, though, it that they spray you from an angle, which, unless it's particularly windy, isn't exactly how rain works. For that experience, you want to invest in a head that hangs directly above you as you get clean. These heads usually have more solid fixtures designed to attach at the same junction the hoses do, but if the joint you have in the wall isn't particularly strong, you might need an additional support set up to hang the head.
Once you've taken the installation into account, you can select among the remaining heads on our list based on features. Some of these head systems are have a great deal of complexity, allowing you to customize your showering experience like never before. Others are utterly simple and completely nonadjustable, so it's worth it to ask yourself how much control you want to have over your water pressure, flow direction, and other variables.
Nature Brought Within
For the longest time, humans only got clean in one of two ways. They either popped into a body of water like a lake or a river, or they stood out under rains and waterfalls. At some point, the rain bathers started getting struck by lightning, so the popularity of that method waned.
Eventually, once we began to regularly tap into wells, bathing in heated tubs of water became a viable option. It wasn't until 1767, though, that the first mechanical shower cleaned a person's body. It was hand-operated, which meant that either the person showering or another person operating the hand pump probably worked up a sweat, necessitating another shower.
By 1850, improvements in indoor plumbing allowed for the first free-standing showers to operate with a continuous, autonomous flow of clean water. The French military quickly seized on what was a fast and economical method of cleaning its soldiers, and, as is the case with so much military technology, it soon gained popularity in the private sector.