If your skin has been getting worse since you moved to New Jersey — or your kids' eczema won't stop flaring — the problem probably isn't just the weather. It's what's coming out of your showerhead. Here's the science, the studies, and what actually fixes it.
31.6 million Americans have eczema. Peer-reviewed studies (Perkin 2016, Engebretsen 2017, Danby 2018) show hard water directly damages the skin barrier and raises eczema risk by up to 87% in infants. Most of NJ has moderately hard to hard water, plus chlorine or chloramine disinfection and detectable PFAS in most public systems — a triple hit on sensitive skin. Moisturizer alone won't fix it. The only long-term solution is to change the water itself: whole-home filtration (Halo 5), paired with dermatologist care and shorter, cooler showers.
Eczema — clinically called atopic dermatitis — is one of the most common chronic skin conditions in the country. According to the National Eczema Association, roughly 31.6 million Americans have some form of eczema. That's 7.3% of adults and 10.7% of children. The American Academy of Dermatology places childhood prevalence similarly — about 1 in 10 kids under the age of 18.
New Jersey is not an outlier in a good way. Pediatric eczema rates in NJ track at or slightly above the national average, and demand for pediatric dermatology in Monmouth County and surrounding areas has grown sharply over the past decade. Dermatologists statewide regularly describe the same pattern: patients who had no skin issues in one state move to NJ and flare within weeks.
The assumption is always the same first. "It must be the cold, dry winter." "It must be allergies." "It must be stress." Those are real factors. But they don't explain why the flares hit hardest after a shower, why kids' skin looks worse right after the bath, or why moisturizer that worked for years suddenly does nothing.
The answer most families never hear from their derm — because most dermatologists don't test water — is the water coming out of the tap.
Sources: National Eczema Association — Eczema Facts; American Academy of Dermatology — Childhood Eczema.
This isn't folk wisdom — it's peer-reviewed science. Three studies locked it down:
Perkin et al 2016 (UK Born in Bradford cohort, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology): tracked more than 1,300 infants and found that babies living in hard-water areas (calcium carbonate above 250 mg/L) had an 87% higher risk of developing eczema by age 3 months compared to babies in soft-water areas. The effect was independent of family history, filaggrin gene mutations, and breastfeeding status.
Engebretsen et al 2017 (published in JAMA Pediatrics): a parallel Danish cohort study that confirmed the association — higher home water hardness independently predicted childhood atopic dermatitis incidence.
Danby et al 2018 (British Journal of Dermatology): moved from epidemiology to mechanism. Using controlled exposures in a clinical lab, the team showed that washing with hard water:
Here's the simple chemistry. Hard water contains dissolved calcium (Ca²⁺) and magnesium (Mg²⁺). When those ions meet soap or body wash, they react instantly to form insoluble calcium and magnesium stearates — the white, waxy film known as soap scum. That scum doesn't rinse off skin. It sits there, pulling moisture out, disrupting the acid mantle, and feeding bacteria that make eczema worse.
On healthy skin, the body compensates. On eczema-prone skin, the barrier is already compromised — and every hard-water shower is another daily insult.
Sources: Perkin et al 2016 — JACI; Engebretsen et al 2017 — JAMA Pediatrics; Danby et al 2018 — British Journal of Dermatology.
Hardness is the biggest single eczema-related problem in NJ tap water, but it's not the only one. Two more show up in almost every lab report we pull in Monmouth County.
Every public water system in New Jersey disinfects — most with free chlorine, many with chloramine (a longer-lasting blend of chlorine and ammonia). Both kill waterborne pathogens, and both are required by law. But chlorine is also a strong oxidizer that strips the lipid bilayer in the outer skin layer (stratum corneum). On eczema-prone skin, this translates directly into:
Chloramine is worse for skin than chlorine in some ways — it doesn't evaporate like chlorine does, so its contact time with skin is longer. For a deeper dive on NJ disinfection byproducts, see our chlorine & chloramine in NJ American Water guide.
PFAS ("forever chemicals") aren't just a drinking-water problem. A 2024 University of Birmingham study published in Environment International found that PFAS absorbs through skin at rates up to 13.5% of dermal contact dose. That's a real daily exposure route through showering and bathing — and PFAS has been associated with autoimmune-linked skin inflammation in several peer-reviewed studies.
For NJ homeowners, this matters because 63% of NJ community water systems test positive for PFAS. If your kid has eczema and you're on any of those systems, every shower is doing a little barrier damage from hardness, a little oxidative damage from chlorine, and a little autoimmune loading from PFAS. Combined, it explains a lot of why flare-ups won't stop.
Sources: Environment International — PFAS dermal absorption (2024); AAD — Chlorine and Eczema; EPA — Chloramines in Drinking Water.
After installing Halo systems in hundreds of Monmouth County homes, a pattern repeats in almost every call. If three or more of these sound like your household, water chemistry is a live factor for your eczema:
These aren't coincidences. They're signs the water coming into the house is chemically working against the skin barrier every single day.
For more on what's in the water itself, see our hard water in Monmouth County guide — it breaks down exact hardness measurements by township.
None of those short-term steps remove the root cause — the water itself. The only way to stop hard water, chlorine, chloramine, and PFAS from hitting skin daily is to treat the water at the point it enters the house.
| Approach | What It Addresses | Effectiveness for Eczema |
|---|---|---|
| Shower filter (carbon cartridge) | Some chlorine at one shower only | Modest — one shower, one family member |
| Standard ion-exchange softener | Hardness only (no chlorine/PFAS removal) | Real improvement on soap scum + barrier damage |
| Halo 5 Whole-Home System | Hardness conditioning, chlorine/chloramine reduction, sediment | Significant — every tap, every person, no salt |
| Halo 5 + Kitchen RO (FIXALL combo) | Whole-home + 99% PFAS reduction at kitchen tap | Gold standard for eczema-prone families |
The Halo 5 is salt-free, chemical-free, and doesn't discharge brine — making it the cleanest whole-home option for a family where one or more members have sensitive, reactive, or eczema-prone skin. It addresses all three of the water-chemistry factors (hardness, chlorine/chloramine, contact irritants) that the research points to.
Source: AAD — How to Bathe with Eczema; FIXALL Halo 5 overview.
Here's what we hear back from Monmouth County families, usually within a month of install:
To be clear: Halo is not a cure. Eczema is a chronic condition and dermatologist care still matters. But removing one of the biggest daily environmental triggers makes every other treatment work better.
FIXALL Plumbing Heating & Air Condition is a registered Halo dealer and a licensed master plumbing company (NJ Master Plumber Lic. #12125). Based at 57 NJ-35, Keyport, NJ 07735. Every install is a free on-site water test first, then properly sized system selection. No pressure, no sales gimmicks — just answers.
We come out, test the water in your home (hardness, chlorine, TDS, pH), and show you exactly what's hitting your family's skin every shower. If the test says you don't need anything, we'll tell you that too. No obligation, no pressure.
FIXALL Plumbing Heating & Air Condition — based in Keyport, serving all of Monmouth County and surrounding areas. Request a free in-home water test today.