I wear mostly dark t-shirts. If i scrub my skin with them they come up white.

I live in a tall building, pots, pans, toilets do not show the usual signs of hard water, electric pot shows some but not terrible. Washing machine does some too.

Worried mainly about the showers and our skin.

Anything that we can do about this from our end? Utilities are part of the building.

Thanks.

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They make shower filters (replaces the shower head). No idea how well they work.

Do you have the means to test your water? Only then can you properly treat whatever is causing the problem. Does a local municipality supply the water? Is it the cold or hot water??

Where I live we had community water and sewer. You called some guy's house if there was a problem He always had the same answer, "Run the water until it is no longer black. He could have cared less.

Good luck.

Bar soap or liquid? I have felt that with many liquid soaps when at someone elses house.

I would switch soaps (like travel sizes) just to see if it changes.

I’ve always found where you can’t seem to rinse the soap off you, and still have that slippery soapy feeling on your skin, the water being overly soft (no minerals) is the culprit.

No liquid soap, just bars.

The water is a bit hard.

We dry our skins free of trouble but noticed that after, when we are completely dry our skin is covered with an invisible coat of soap.
Rendered visible by rubbing our dark clothes on the skin.

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quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I’ve always found where you can’t seem to rinse the soap off you, and still have that slippery soapy feeling on your skin, the water being overly soft (no minerals) is the culprit.

Yep, soft water is what it sounds like.

I’ve never really looked into it, but I’ve long suspected that soaps that rinse easier and more cleanly contain at least some detergent—although I don't know how one would determine that. I won’t use “antibacterial” types, but in the summer I use Irish Spring bar soap and it seems to rinse better.

I've noticed over the years some brands of bar soaps leave a bunch more soap scum on my shower walls than other brands. Try some other brands of soap. Irish Spring bar soap seems to leave the least amount of soap scum on my shower walls so I've been using that about the last 5 years.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I’ve always found where you can’t seem to rinse the soap off you, and still have that slippery soapy feeling on your skin, the water being overly soft (no minerals) is the culprit.

What he said.

quote:

Anything that we can do about this from our end?

Using less soap is about your only option.

You might try some Vinegar in a spray bottle. After you dry off, spritz some vinegar on and wipe off.

Dilute at a 7-1 ratio, and adjust to your situation and preference as you go.

Or, make the vinegar-water mix and splash some on a wash cloth and rub down. You can also use Apple Cider Vinegar.

BTW if your are camping and have no access to a shower, this is a great way to get cleaned up.
You can also spray down your dishes and kitchen stuff with this and sanitize them.
.

Bill Burr sez you need lotion!

Great observation. Was focusing on my skin and forgot the wall residue. Yes, there is some.

Going back to the quest for a solution, is it the soap or the water to be blamed?

We’ve rotated a few soap bars but my wife uses mostly the antibacterial type and i stopped using it after reading the Board. My skin reacts poorly to Glicerine soap so i switched to white soap for a while.

Vinegar is a no-no. I use it soaringly on the clothes after some more Board enlightment but wife hates it.

Since ALL leave a lot of residue on my skin so i thought it would be normal to blame the water.

The Quest for The Holy Soap has begun.

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quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Bill Burr sez you need lotion!

Monkey, you crack me up… I thought the exact same thing.

I did a quick Duck Duck search to confirm my understanding.
Hard water has minerals in it that the soap attaches to to create the film that sticks to your skin and shower walls as a film.
Softened water removes those minerals keeping attachment at a minimum.
Many that are not used to having soft water actually think it's harder to rinse off with soft water because you get more suds and it does feel slicker.
You are actually getting cleaner with less residue because the soap has less minerals to attach to.

ETA:We have always had a water softner. Soft water feels better to us and extends the life of appliances that use water like dishwashers.

If your water gives you the feeling of not rinsing the soap away, it's more like your water is soft water. That's a characteristic of soft water.

OP: it's not the soap, it's the water

How is the water there in Argentina? Soft water will always give you that slippery "soap won't rinse off" feeling, hard water will not.

Did you recently move to a new area with different water or did your water supply change?

Sounds like you're not getting Zestfully clean...



May have something to do with water type and the soap type, change up to different soaps until you find the combination that works. IIRC you are in a high rise multi family housing building, so you'd need something to soften/filter the water in the unit.

Link

quote:

Since ALL leave a lot of residue on my skin so i thought it would be normal to blame the water.

I always had the same feeling with bar soap.
Went to the liquid bath soap in bottles and it was great.
Never had the scummy feeling again.
YMMV

quote:

Originally posted by 0-0:
Going back to the quest for a solution, is it the soap or the water to be blamed?

Several have given the correct response. It's the water...not the soap.

Very basic, but good, explanation. There's a bit more chemistry involved, but this sums it up fairly well.

If this was your own place, I'd tell you to rip out the water softener and that would solve your problem. It sounds like, though, your whole building is on the softener so you're pretty well screwed since you can't put the Ca and the Mg back into the water. You're only option, aside from moving, is to use less soap.

Furthermore, any websites found that claim soft water rinses soap off of you better than hard water are typically sites of soft water system businesses. They're blowing smoke up your patootie. It's pretty basic chemistry.