Distilled water: not the be-all-and-end-all

A new wet shaver is having trouble learning to make lather, and seeks out advice here or on any of the various online shaving communities. One of the first answers he’ll receive will be to try a distilled water shave.

I think this advice does new folks a disservice, and I wrote an article explaining why. @mantic was kind enough to publish it on Sharplogist: Can You Really Get A Better Shaving Lather With Distilled Water?

I know there are folks who use nothing but distilled to shave with, and I am not urging them to change what they do if it works for them. But I'd love to hear what your experience has been with distilled water and if what I have to say in the article rings true or not.

Thanks for taking a look!

 

Interesting read. It is all anecdotal, but at home, I use well water out of the tap. Not overly hard by any means, and I get a just fine lather. I always see people commenting on how softened or distilled water is so much better for lather, but when I travel and have soft water? I just about can't stand it. The lather is fine, and probably fluffier with less effort, but it feels like it won't wash off. You rinse your face forever, you think you have your brush rinsed out nicely, but when you take it to the towel you see it is still gunky.... I hate soft water. I will take my out of the well, Mississippi River headwaters well water, every time.

 

Nope, wasn't taken into consideration at all. A fair point, though I suspect the amount of water contained in a single shave's load of soap is pretty small, especially for hard soaps.

Did not know that, but it's also made with Tetrasodium EDTA, a chelating agent that negates the effects of hard water.

On a side note, I was surprised when I tried MWF for the first time to find that I had no problems lathering it at all, despite it's reputation. I've always wondered if it maybe got that reputation before they began including EDTA in their formula, and the reputation just sticks despite it no longer really being an issue.

 

It's a fairly well written story, but nothing I would recommend for a newbie seeking answers. Here are a few observations.

1). Firstly, most people recommend trying distilled water as a test to verify if hard water is the cause of lathering issues. Very rarely do I see people just assume they have to use distilled water all the time.

2). While distilled water has a lower mineral content, it is NOT pure H2O. If you and your family were drinking truly pure water you would of all been fighting over the toilet. Pure water will strip ions in your intestine to regain a neutral charge. This ends up triggering a serious case of the runs. I ran a distilling unit in the Navy for many years and getting the new guy to drink from the effluent right off of the machine was an age old favorite trick of the oldtimers.

3). Pure water will not slake your thirst, your body needs some of the impurities to "taste" the water. Personal experience once again.

My takeaway is that you didn't purchase actual pure water, just something with a much lower mineral % than what normally available. I will say that I do agree with your closing statement that a bit of hard water just requires figuring out what works and will not stop you from a good shave. I applaud you taking the time to reach out and educate wet shavers as I know it can be difficult.

Matt

 

Thanks for the kind words about the article Matt. I do think I can defend/explain myself a bit, though:

Sometimes it's recommended as a test; I've definitely also seen plenty of times where it's recommended as a cure. Either way, the implication is that when you try distilled water, you will see the full potential of how easy and fantastic lather can be, and as I said in the article, I think this does new folks a disservice.

I don't have the direct experience you do, but I did a fair amount of research for this article, background research to make sure I was getting basic facts right, like whether distilled water is truly potable (though I myself had been drinking it for several days). For the record, the distilled water I drank and used for lathering claims on the label to be "purified by steam distillation." Mineral content does not remain after steam distillation, because the evaporation point of calcium, magnesium, etc. is so much higher than that of water.

My research confirmed that it's an old wive's tale that drinking purified/distilled water is dangerous. This is borne out by the fact that bottles of distilled water are sold in the beverage aisle of groceries stores, right next to the drinking water, with labels that include no warnings of any kind. The worst problem you might run into is getting a bit less minerals in your diet, though that's not likely going to be an issue if you're eating regular food.

So what caused the new guy to get the runs when he drank the effluent right off the machine? In industrial situations, which I'm guessing yours was, the water you start with may contain more volatile components that do evaporate before or with the water, and so would be present in the distillate. These impurities were probably what were causing the intestinal distress. Retail, grocery store distilled water, on the other hand, is made starting with drinking water that has already had harmful impurities filtered out. The distillation is a final process to remove mineral content for use in steam irons, etc. where you don't want mineral content to build up.

I can provide several sources if you'd like to take a look, but this one does a nice job of summing up: Can You Drink Distilled Water?

 

In the industrial setting I retired from, we used distilled water in the lab (and it was drinkable). We used DE-IONIZED water in the process and it was definitely not suitable for drinking.

 

We also used a resin train to de-ionize (polish) our water to ensure purity. Depending on how pure we made it, this was then used for steam generators (for turbines), lab work, oxygen generators, and reactor plant make up water (to compensate for water lost do to sampling or maintenance evolutions).

It's possible that some of the scale suppressant (we used seawater as our source... full of nasty things that bake onto hot surfaces.... bad for heat transfer) that made it through was part of the cause of the intestinal distress. I can only go by what my experience has shown me. I do believe that use of DI water is a great tool to see if hard water if causing you lathering issues.