Water softener systems prevent common water problems, including chalky calcium carbonate deposits, called limescale (or scale), and other harmful minerals such as iron and magnesium. These deposits can create hard water that dries out skin and hair. When one of these devices is installed in the home, it softens the water coming out of each faucet, reducing or completely removing these harmful minerals. This improves the quality of drinking water in the home and results in healthier skin, hair and nails after bathing. The best water softeners work by using a process called ion exchange to draw heavy minerals from the water, or by neutralizing these minerals so that they can't bind together and remain dissolved in the water. When researching water softening systems, we delved into the characteristics and specifications of multiple categories, as well as customer reviews of each product. Based on our findings, here are the best water softeners available. How we chose the best water