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This changes everyhing!

Now it would be helpful for people to give some pointers how you get RO water. First, I had to google that it is for "Reverse Osmosis" / RO. I just use faucet water, living in a low mountain/highland type area I can just use what we have.

Maybe you can throw our poor magician Medivh who doesn't seem to have memorized any water purification spells a pointer where to get or how to make RO water.

We have an RO unit installed at home for our drinking water.

Since it's so soft, just 20 PPM, it allows me to get the best lather from all my soaps.

The benefits:
- less soap required
- less time needed to make the lather
- huge water window before lather will break
- lather remains creamy and dense throughout multiple passes
- shaving feels better (probably due to the creamy density of the lather)
- post shave is also slightly better

When traveling, I use bottled water to make my lather as RO water generally isn't available.

If I didn't have RO water, I'd definitely be using distilled water to make lather. It doesn't take much. I would never go back to using tap water/hard water to make lather.
 
Now I'm curious. We have a 450 foot well. I see some scale around my showerhead, and sometimes out hot water has a sulfur smell. Never had any real trouble with lathering, but am going to use some distilled water today to see if I can tell a difference in building a lather.
 
I work on board the ship and water that we produce is destilled water
Every soap/cream is slick, there are no residues on razor or the brush
All my equipment looks like new
When I'm at home, water is hard, I have to celan my razor on weekly basis, here on board i don't clean razor at all, it's clean, there is zero residue
Only thing I miss is cold water...
 
This is a good observation. I live in the foothills where the water supply is basically snowmelt. It's always been hard for me to understand how some people have trouble lathering. I suppose this is the explanation. I don't bring a brush when I travel, so I haven't noticed a difference in lathering, but I have noticed that my shaves aren't as good. I had always chalked this up to subpar conditions for washing my face or not bringing my best razor or blades.
 
A month ago I moved to a ski resort for the winter and I've noticed that the water here is quite soft unlike any water I've seen before and the quality of the shaves I get are just on a whole new level and I still can't believe it......
And the location of the ski resort is....??

I live in the deep southeast where the water percolates up thru a bed of calcium and as a result the water is hard as h*ll. I grew up in the southeastern Sierra Nevada where the water percolates thru granite and it not only tasted great but the shave soap lathered quite well.
 
And the location of the ski resort is....??

I live in the deep southeast where the water percolates up thru a bed of calcium and as a result the water is hard as h*ll. I grew up in the southeastern Sierra Nevada where the water percolates thru granite and it not only tasted great but the shave soap lathered quite well.

It's called Borovets and it's located in Bulgaria, which is in Eastern Europe.
 
And the location of the ski resort is....??

I live in the deep southeast where the water percolates up thru a bed of calcium and as a result the water is hard as h*ll. I grew up in the southeastern Sierra Nevada where the water percolates thru granite and it not only tasted great but the shave soap lathered quite well.
I also live in the Southeast and have a 450 ft well. Tried distilled water for my shave today. Wow it did make a difference.
 
Used distilled water to soak my brushes and build lather. It really did make a big difference in shave quality. Lather slicker and shave closer. I was very skeptical it would make this big a difference. Won't make any changes. My wife would flip out if I told her I was buying distilled water for shaving. She already thinks I'm nuts about my shaving anyway.
 
The water in Warsaw, where I live now, is insanely hard. UK water is hard but nothing like this. We have to use a saucepan to boil water for hot drinks because using an electric kettle just once leaves thick deposits of limescale. Our clothes wear out extremely fast using the washing machine with this water too.

I can’t really compare shaving here versus UK (quite hard water) or Singapore (very soft water) because I wasn’t as much into soaps and DE shaving then, but from my more recent experience on visits I didn’t really notice much difference to my shaves. I don’t feel I have any difficulties making a good lather or shaving with the ultra hard water in Warsaw but I will try and pay more attention to it next time I travel, and see if I can detect a difference using softer water. My assumption right now is that I just adapt the lather I make to compensate for it. But it’s possible that softer water might improve the pre-shave soaking of stubble and make the beard softer - I don’t know but if it was the case that would certainly make close-shaving easier and more comfortable.

It's not only the lathering, but sonehow my whiskers get softer within a few minutes while where I live even a 15 minute warm shower doesn't do much and once my whiskers are very soft, the rest is a child's play. I've said this multiple times - the only thing I don't like about shaving is the long, complex and boring prep that I have to perform every time in order to get a good shave. With the soft water here I'm not even trying and the results on every shave so far are 11/10 and on top of that I use different razor for every shave.
 
It's not only the lathering, but sonehow my whiskers get softer within a few minutes while where I live even a 15 minute warm shower doesn't do much and once my whiskers are very soft, the rest is a child's play. I've said this multiple times - the only thing I don't like about shaving is the long, complex and boring prep that I have to perform every time in order to get a good shave. With the soft water here I'm not even trying and the results on every shave so far are 11/10 and on top of that I use different razor for every shave.
I suspect that’s it. I do feel that since we moved here my stubble isn’t as soft after my pre-shave ritual. That makes a big difference to shaving.
 
I just had another amazing shave. That water is making things so easy to the point that even razors with blade chatter don't matter that much. My face feels soft and smoothly during the whole day and it's because of the water. Now I understand why some folks have it so easy and shave without trying at all and the results are always 10/10.
I think this goes someway to explaining how we all can have such wildly different impressions of the same soap or cream. The most obvious example of this to me is MWF. Some struggle to lather it while others get a sumptuous lather almost straight away.
 
I'll echo everyone that recommended a water softener. Your water heater will last longer. An electric kettle will last longer and not require the extra cleaning. The water will taste better. You will get a better shave. Your clothes will look brighter and last longer. And if you have a skin ailment like my niece's psoriasis you will notice a big difference there too. It's a relatively reasonable one time investment (mine was $1,000 Canadian) and a $7 bag of salt crystals a month after that.
 
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