What Is a Rain Shower? How It Feels, What It Needs, and Who It Suits

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A rain shower is a wide, flat shower head that sits overhead and lets water fall straight down, instead of a small head that sprays at an angle from the wall. The point is the feeling: softer drops, spread over your whole body at once, closer to standing in warm rain than being hit by a jet.

That feeling comes with a few trade-offs. Before you change your bathroom around one, it helps to know what a rain shower needs and who it suits best.

What makes a shower a rain shower

Three things set it apart from a standard head.

• Size. The face is wide, often 8 inches or more, and some panels are much bigger. The head on the Waterfall Thermostatic Massaging Rain Shower System Set measures 19.69 by 14.17 inches.
• Position. It hangs flat above you, either on a long arm from the wall or on a short arm from the ceiling.
• Nozzles. Many have dozens of small soft nozzles across the face, so the water leaves in many thin streams rather than a few strong ones.

How it feels in daily use

The water lands on your head and shoulders first and runs down evenly. Many people find it calmer than a wall spray, with less sting on sensitive skin.

The same spread is why it can feel weaker. The water from one pipe is shared across a big face, so each stream carries less force. Rinsing thick hair or a lot of shampoo can take longer than under a narrow, strong spray.

You will also get your hair wet every time. With a fixed overhead head there is no easy way to stand out of the water.

What a rain shower needs from your bathroom

Enough water

A wide head needs enough flow to fill its face. On low pressure, the outer nozzles can dribble while the middle runs. If your current shower already feels weak, expect a rain head to feel softer still. Large systems need far more water than a single head: the Waterfall set's maker lists 16 to 28 litres a minute, which is a question for your plumber and your water heater.

The right height and angle

The head should sit high enough for the tallest person in the house to stand under it with room to spare, and it should hang level so the water falls straight. A standard wall arm points up at an angle, so a rain head on it often tilts or hangs low. An extension arm or a ceiling arm lifts it and lets it hang flat.

A matching thread

A head-only swap screws onto the arm you already have. In the US, shower arms use a 1/2-inch NPT thread, which most rain heads sold for US homes fit.

Who a rain shower suits

• People who shower to unwind. If your shower is the calm part of the day, the even, soft fall is the whole appeal.
• Bathrooms with good pressure. A strong supply makes even a big head feel full.
• Anyone remodelling. If the wall is open anyway, a full system with a valve, body jets or a waterfall spout is far easier to fit now than later.

Who should think twice, or add a handheld

• Homes with low pressure, where a big head may feel thin.
• Children and older adults. A fixed overhead head means water over the face and hair, and no way to rinse while seated. A handheld head on a hose, alone or next to the rain head, lets someone sit on a shower chair and rinse at their own pace.
• Anyone who skips washing their hair on most days. A combo set, with a rain head for some days and a handheld for the rest, saves a shower cap.

Head only, or a full system?

A head-only swap is the cheap way to find out whether you like the feel. The Aqua Square Pure Rain Shower Head is a simple square head for exactly that. Full systems such as the Dream Spa Multi-Jet Rain Shower System add body jets and several spray patterns, and are fitted into the wall.

You can see every set we carry on the Shower Sets page.