Shower water in Shanghai. Toxic?
 

I travel to Shanghai 3-4 times a year and stay in a modern high-rise condo. Without fail when I take a shower my eyes burn. I'm not running water in my eyes, just rinsing off. Very irritating.

Is this common to others who stay long term? Are they adding loads of chemicals to the water system?

You're not the first person to float this theory. In fact, I know a Japanese guy who put special filters on all of the water outlets in his place in order to protect his family. I've also heard through the grapevine that Shanghai water is about as bad as it gets wrt objective measures, and my clothes never seem to get truly clean.

Word is (and judge the reliability of 'the word' around these parts as you wish) that water treatment/purification standards in China can be inconsistent. It's not unsafe, but articles that show Beijing tap water often measures just outside of the 'neutral' pH range. So the water is really safe, but a small pH variation is enough to cause irritation of skin/membranes. I'd imagine this to be true for SH and many other cities.

As for laundry, I use whitening/colour protection products like Vanish. It helps to keep whites whitish.... definitely the greying is more pronounced in China (or specifically for me Beijing). I blame it on the PM 2.5 particulates! So fine it just embeds in the fibers.

I think it would be unusual to find a Japanese family that didn't put special filters on all their water outlets in China!

I get the burn sometimes in my eyes too but I just figured it was from soap or shampoo, now I'll pay more attention to when I get it to see if it's possibly water pH related.

Thank you all for your comments. ph differences make sense to me. I've also wondered if the condo itself (Multi tower 30 plus story newer condo) might be treating the water on site with more chemicals.

All I know is that it really burns here compared to water I've experienced in Seattle, Taiwan, Tokyo, etc.

Hmm, I stayed in a Hilton this past April but did not have any issue with water. No experience staying anywhere else though.

OUT! OUT! Damn Spot!
 

After years of trying to get rid of the ring around the collar and darkening of whites, tshirts, shirts, stains, etc and trying all kinds of Laundry detergents/color safe bleaches, I just got rid of all of them with adding OXYCLEAN to washing machine water. For the worse problems, the directions advised soaking for several hours before finishing the wash.

No more stains on the Hawaiin shirt with brighter colors. ^

Water softeners can cause dry itchy skin from too much salt, as well as, a soapy slimy lather, that is difficult to rinse off.

Don't wash your eye balls when showering? If you must, use bottled water....

But all jokes aside, don't wash your eye balls with water in China. And if you must, use bottled water.

Seriously, I don't wash my eyeballs. Just rinsing off shampoo soap suds, that's it.

I dare say that not a single one of us actively washes our eye balls, but stuff happens. Also, this thread is about Shanghai... not all of China. While I don't doubt that it's possible to find lower quality water in some random factory towns, Shanghai is the leader in this category insofar as 1st and 2nd tier cities are concerned.