Side by Side Comparison of: Waterpik vs F&W

I have bought 3 of these over the years. All three worked as desired, and are still working. I think they are some of the better shower heads out there. What I like about them is the fact that you can pull the head up and point it down, giving me extra height in the shower. I am 6'5 and the showers in my house were designed for someone under 6'. With these, I have plenty of room. An extra nice touch, when I am shaving I push the head down so I can shave without rinsing my face, works great. For the money, these are great.

Great solution for an incredibly low shower pipe in our older home. Very easy install. Do know that it's a single piece... there's no way to detach the bendable pipe from the shower head. I was originally looking for just the bendable pipe to use with a shower head I already have, but took a chance and was pleased with the stream settings of this shower head.

We had one for years ordered three more. The extended flex allows you to easily change the shower head position without stressing the shower head connection to the metal tube or the metal tube connection to the wall which could cause leaking inside the wall. Two of us use the shower head daily so the head is constantly be changed and we have no issues after years of use. We removed the water restricter inside the shower head and use the shower valve to control the amount of water coming out of the shower head. We contacted Waterpik to find out the difference between the NSL-603 and the NML-603S. Waterpik told us the difference is just appearance and the functionality is identical we bought the least expensive.

Okay, that's probably a little extreme but this flexible hose showerhead did make taking a shower more pleasant. My husband is a foot taller than me and our shower is rather narrow. We previously had a big sunflower-type showerhead way up high that made taking a shower like getting in a rain stall for me. He loved it since it was above his head, something most 6'4" people don't get to enjoy when dealing with most shower fixture heights. When we installed the shower years ago, we installed a fiberglass unit and didn't want to cut into it to install a vertical rod for an adjustable socket for a hand held. Sooo, I've hated taking a shower in this bathroom for years! Until we found this flexible hose item.

Generally, we keep it in an "S" shaped curve since the hose it too long to be a straight line from where it is attached to the pipe and being in position for either of us, but this is good since it is pulled up for him and down for me. It does leak a little around the coupling but only a few drips while the water is on, and it goes down into the shower. We don't really use the different settings, just a good straightforward shower with which to rinse shampoo and such.

What is wonderful, from my perspective, is the fact that I can adjust the head to be lower, at shoulder height, if I am only getting in for a quick wash but don't want to get my hair wet. Even when shampooing, I need to be able to have space in the small shower compartment where I am not constantly having water sprayed in my face. This flexibility has helped me deal with the small space of our shower so much better now, and the spray has more pressure than our previous "rain" type of fixture, which makes rinsing shampoo and conditioner so much easier.

We've had it over a year and a half. I love this fixture!

I was very pleased with Waterpik's previous model of this product. The flexible goose-neck hose is infinitely adjustable. Different family members can raise it or lower it, and if you shave in the shower with a fog free mirror like me, you can point it at your back (which is more toward the shower door instead of the middle) to enjoy hot water while you shave.

With the old model, you had to occasionally remove it to soak it in vinegar for a few minutes to remove the hard water deposits that interfere with the shower stream. This new model is truly amazing! The many little water spouts now come out of some kind of little flexible rubber nozzles that never ever clog up! They are somehow self cleaning!

I have decided to add the following to all my reviews:

Beware! Some "reviewers" will trash a product for no reason simply because they are paid to or because they sell competitive products. Other "reviewers" will give products - that they have never seen and never used - glowing 5 star ratings - for a fee. Some honest reviewers do not understand what a product is for or how to use it and will trash a product simply because they are just plain dumb.

I got this mainly because I wanted to try the rain and mist feature. It was easy to install. I have never installed a shower head, ever! You just remove the old shower head with a wrench, then remove any plumber's tape that is still on there. Take a steel wool pad and clean the threads well. Take the white pressure reducer out of the new shower head (it pops out if you use a flat head screw driver). Take some of the plumbers tape that it comes with a wrap it approximately 6 times around the threads on the arm of your shower pipe. Screw this one on, and, wha-lah! I actually LOVE it because it's easy to switch between the modes and they all work well. I doesn't look cheap even though it costs so little!

Water Options: 5 (rain, massage, mist, pause and aeration)

Size: 6"

It's very easy to use any option you want with the simple turn of the switch. The showerhead is also able to be moved around (360°).

Easy installation, I had no problem getting this on or off of my shower line, and it came with everything it needed (which wasn't much).

I love the massage option more than any of the other options. But the best and most important one is the pause!! Saving not only money, but WATER!! My husband and I both love it!! We've yet to go wrong with this brand!

 what a wonderful shower head

feels so nice like I am at an expensive hotel instead of at home.

I love all the features and the power of the water

I now use this in my bathroom

I am so happy and I have told other to buy this as well

I received this product with a promotional discount in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. No compensation for a positive review was provided. All of my reviews are based 100% off of my experience with the product and I never guarantee a positive review

WOW WOW WOW!!! Just got this thing a few days ago to try it out. I am in love with bigger size shower heads (I think they call them sun flower heads? not sure). Anyways, I have another type of these shower heads but it has 0 extra functions :( This one comes with 5 functions, and one includes a pause of water which sounds silly (why not just turn off?), but that way you can turn it back on without building up the heated water again. Nice right? The other settings are pretty powerful, they feel like they give you a slight nice massage on your scalp while washing your hair. The only one thing that kinda bugs me, is the top part gets finger prints on it super easily. No bigger though, a little vinegar will smudge that right out.
I took some detailed pictures down below of the one I have in comparison to the other one. You will notice they are about the same size. My other one does have a removable smaller head, but I rather have the 5 power settings instead.

Great Showerhead

I installed this showerhead in our family's private spa. My Mom was complaining it was time to get something better than our plain old showerhead. I searched around for sometime to get something we will all enjoy. I like more of a stronger pressure while my Mom likes something more delicate. I decided on this showerhead since it has the mist function which I knew my Mom would love, and on the other hand it has the Massage and spray function which is strong pressure.

I installed it and got a lot of compliments for choosing the right showerhead. My mom doesn't stop to praise me for getting her this showerhead with mist. She says it feels like silk is spraying on her skin. I personally love the Spray and massage, it is very powerful.

> Overall we are very happy with this showerhead

This works very well and I like that it will probably go a long way to eliminate leakage problems since it is so flush with the pipe and there is not a lot of grooves that can wear down or other problems that would cause it to leak. However, if you are used to something with a hand held hose option, you will miss it, and while flexible and you can accomplish moving it while showering, it's not the easiest to grapple with when you are trying to rinse parts of the body you might otherwise use a hand held for.

 Had a couple challenges installing the head ... you'll see in the video. My application was a very small shower where the head faces the door, so an adjustable showerhead neck saves wetting the floor. I had to add a pipe extension because the stub out of the wall was tiny.

The NML-603 made a rattling sound when I took it out of the package ... and the head seemed to want to unscrew itself, but in the end, it was a successful install and I'm looking forward to using it. I'll update the posting if I have any problems as time goes by. Check out the video.

The convenience of the flexable head is the reason that I love this showerhead. My wife is 4'-10” and I'm 6'-2”. I have been using Waterpik flexable heads for 10 to 12 years, and have purchased 5 or 6 of them during that time. I normaly keep a new one on hand, because the flexable line has broken twice over the years. The soft plastic liner on the outside of the flexable line prevented water from splashing all over the bathroom. They are very easy to remove, and replace. The only reason I gave it 4 stars, is the durability of the flexable line, even though we use it a lot. I intened to continue purchasing this showerhead for as long as Waterpik makes them.

This is the best replacement shower head on the market. My wife is very picky about the water pressure and the shower head and over the years we have tried several different ones. When we installed this shower head at our house we had average water pressure and the old shower head had some problems building up enough pressure to provide a good shower. As soon as I installed this shower head it was like a whole new world.

The best parts about this shower head are that is has an adjustable neck. I am tall and my wife is short, so it is nice to be able to adjust the height according to who is using it. The 6 different setting are really nice and it is so easy to change from setting to setting.

Installation was a breeze and I have installed this shower head in my kid's shower as well.

We've been using the "snake" for years (about 10 years). We love how you can position the water stream wherever you want - high or low. The weak link seems to be the plastic connector. After a few years we've cracked or broken off every one we've had. Over 10 years we've been through three, and just received our fourth from Amazon (as they aren't offered for sale in Canada it seems). But, we're happy to keep replacing it as we love everything else about it. Only 4 stars, but if they made a metal connector I'm sure we'd never have to buy another one.

Our water pressure is a bit low to really make the best of this shower head; even still, it supplies a nice, wide cascade to bath in.

Given as a gift. It looked very nice for the price

This thing is HUGE. I bought this for my girlfriend and she loves it.

Please note, one of the 5 settings is a PAUSE. The adjustment is fairly stiff and it requires two hands. (one to hold the head and the other to move the tab) So it's far easier to just use the faucet knob. For all practical purposes, this is a FOUR function head.

The connection to the tubing seems to be just slightly over-sized. With layers of teflon tapes, and the gasket that came with it or extra thick one purchased at store, there is slight leakage. Not enough to matter in practical sense, but the connection is not perfect. I chose to NOT crank the connection down Godzilla strength as the fitting can crack.

This head does swivel but not much. If you prefer down pour type experience, you will need a swivel attachment.

We bought this to replace the shower head in our kids bathroom. I was a bit surprised by the size after I installed it. It was a bit bigger than I envisioned. Installation was quick and easy, though I have to adjust it every once and a while to stop it from dripping. My kids love the different functions (and even my husband on the rare occasion that he showers in there). Changing the functions can be kind or tricky though as it's a bit stiff to move. Hopefully over time and use, it will loosen up.

I really loved this as soon as it was installed. It is larger around than my last shower head so I loved the possibility of how much coverage it could spray. After two weeks I was less than thrilled. The shower pressure is very poor. I finally decided to buy another new shower head. I started looking around I saw other shower heads had the same problem. Something about the government limiting the about of gallons per minute. Another person said that they removed this from their shower head and it worked better. My hubby took ours down (this one) and it has an Oring that is very large restricting the flow. Once he removed this and reinstalled the shower head it was magic. I really love this shower head very much now.

While the goose-neck shower head is terrific in our teensy shower, we've found that hard plastic washer at the connection to the pipe invariably cracks, allowing a small leak, and attempts to tighten it to stop the leak shatter it, leading to a big leak dribbling down the outside of the neck. The place the washer goes is not accessible, so while we can see what's left of the broken washer, we cannot push another one into its place.

It's still the best option for our very small shower; we are on our third one of these Waterpik shower heads.

For want of a three-cent part, two stars were lost.

This used to be a wonderful product...but not this specific model. This silver model is apparently made of different material that end up squeaking very loudly when the unit is moved for a different angle. That and the female union and washer do not create a water tight seal. I had to use copious amounts of teflon tape to eradicate the leak. Squeak you say? Well, you take that squeak and amplify it through the whole house via the water system and it is quite annoying. It did take a couple of years to grow the intolerable level at which it eventually arrived, but I can already see that the new unit I just replaced it with has the same issue. The white model that we purchased in 2001 is still going strong, but they are no longer available. Very disappointing.

One of the main reasons I chose this model is that it shows it having the "water saving trickle feature". I read the reviews that said it did not have this feature, so went directly to the Water Pik site and saw that it is listed there as having it. Given that both Amazon and Water Pik show this model as having the trickle feature, I decided that some reviewer was just reviewing the wrong model. I should have believed the reviews; my item arrived and it does not have that feature. What a disappointment!

Other modes work as described. Unfortunately, we live in a city with severe water shortfalls and tiered billing, so water conservation is imperative; that trickle feature was the reason for replacing the current shower head, which was working just fine and had a 2.5 GPM flow rate, the same as this one. The only improvement this one offered was the trickle. I spent so much time sorting through the options and am sorry to have wasted that time on a product that is mislabeled.

By the way, we bought two shower heads, two different models, in this order, both for the same reasons; both were labeled to have the trickle feature and neither one has it.

As for the reviews that mention leakage, we had that problem on initial install, but a little tweaking took care of it. No big deal.

And regarding the flexible neck on this model; that was the other reason for buying this one. My husband is 6'4", so we thought this looked like a great option for him. Once installed however, even in the highest position, it is still no higher than the hand held model. The neck is flexible, and it does stay in place, but because the pipe coming out of the wall angles downward (I think it has to angle like that to work properly), by the time you bend this thing around, up, and over, into a showering position, it is hardly tall at all and it sticks way out into the shower. It would be a good option for people shorter than average it they wanted to be able to make it lower, but as a shower for tall people this is a fail.

For the money, we like this. it has a number of settings, and it move in almost any direction easily and stays. We had one of these earlier models before and it finally broke on the goose neck. it did leak around the connection end. so does this new one. i don't think it did originally when i put it on, but the movement of the neck seems to have loosened something. I don't think this one is made as well, but if i get 2 years out of it, it will have been worth the $30.

The new one fell apart as well. It always leaked after the shower was shut off, and the head always got mold on it which needed to be cleaned regularly. We live in a motorhome, so water conservation is more important than ever. I really liked the shower and flexibility, but just not worth that much money again this soon. We'll try something else.

The pros: You can easily reposition this, and if you are cleaning your tub, and want to rinse a spot, you have more flexibility.

The middle ground is the massage head. It's average and does it's job okay. I usually select one setting and use the same setting for the life of the shower head, so I may not be the best to comment. For the massage setting I chose, I felt like it has less pressure than the last head I used, but it's acceptable.

The cons: This sticks out a long ways from the wall. To get it to stay in place, you must twist it into an S-shape, and it results in the shower head being much further from the wall than a regular head. If you have a small shower, like a corner unit, it would be difficult to use this. I have a medium-sized tube, and this forces me to stand nearly in the center, whereas I used to stand in the first quarter of the tub. This may or may not be a drawback, but there it is.

Also, there's not too many ways to position this. The neck is not that rigid. You can't, for example, keep it in position without bending it into an S-shape. If you tried to position it straight out at a 45-degree angle, it would droop down out of position.

You need quite a bit of water pressure to get a nice shower, my old shower head was of a similar size and managed to get a stronger stream than this one. Out of all the modes, only a couple are actually "useful" and switching through them requires quite a bit of strength as the lever is really snug.

Didn't work for me

I use the rain and mist functions the most. The rain function does make a lot of noise since it is air coming through the holes. That is what made me give it the 3 stars. It's okay but I may look for another shower head.

An economical replacement for an apartment shower head. The massage and rain sprays are nice. There is one spray that literally sends water everywhere over my very large shower, I can only assume it's for a carwash. I'm neither thrilled nor disappointed so overall I'm happy with my $15 purchase.

My husband and I bought this shower head for our master bathroom because our old shower head was pretty small and didn't work well, we love this shower head because it is large and has a bunch of different settings. Even though we love this shower head I am only giving it three starts because the first one I ordered broke the same day we bought it, the inside of the shower head (the clicker that you use to change the settings) popped out of the head and wouldn't go back in. The latest one I bought has only four settings one of them is broken and doesn't work at all and we aren't sure why but we enjoy the other settings so that is alright.

Flexible but quickly looses its ability to stay in one spot. Started drooping down, always had to keep pushing it up. Eventually tossed it and went with something else

I used to have one at our old home and loved it. Bought this one and enjoyed it for only a couple of months before it quit working. The flexible arm does not let water through so the water trickles out. Because I owned one I liked that lasted years, I'll give it one more try, but if it fails like that again, I will be very angry & disappointed.

All plastic - not chrome

I bought this to replace an aging, similar looking shower head that I've had for years and was very happy with. This one is poor construction and is weak. The tubing isn't even strong enough to hold up its' own weight and when adjusting the spray, it feels like the head is unscrewing.

You can see when I push it up, it just falls back down. Sometimes it stays up but usually after moving it, it won't stay high enough to spray my head.

I'm pretty forgiving of lower quality in exchange for affordability but I would consider this to be a cheap knock-off. I'm considering putting my old rusted head back on because it, at least, still works.

This used to be my favorite shower head. The pressure was incredible. But I noticed that after 5-6 months, the parts would wear out and it would have to be replaced. Since the shower head was so powerful and since it was inexpensive, I didn't mind too much.
Eventually it got to be time for the next replacement so I ordered another one. The head itself (not the connection, which we sealed with teflon tape) on the this brand-new head leaked, which frankly is unacceptable. Our apartment had decent pressure already, so I was willing to overlook it. But when we moved to a new home I decided to try ordering another one, assuming that I had just ended up with a rare lemon. Nope, I was wrong. This one leaked WORSE than the previous one, and refused to hold a steady temperature. And our new house has almost no water pressure to begin with, rendering this shower head USELESS.
I guess that I could have returned both of them. But it's a pain in the butt and there's no guarantee that I'd get any $ back, so it didn't seem worth it. I'll just never buy from them again.
Unfortunately, I've yet to find a shower head that's as good as this one, (back when they actually made it well). The one that we have now is better than the leaky POS, but it still takes me a good 5 minutes just to rinse shampoo out of my hair. It is frustrating to say the least.
I don't know what changes Waterpik has made to their manufacturing, but NO ONE should have to pay $ for something as badly made as this. A basic garden hose would do a better job of cleaning you off.
~L

Back in Jan 1, 2011, I rated this 5 *s but have knocked off 3 *s because of mold issue. So this is a buyer beware. Gives great showers as long as you remove the stupid water restrictor inside the tube. BUT, and I mean BUT...keep an eye for mold!

Here it is May 27, 2011 and this showerhead has developed black drippy MOLD around the center nozzles, also some of the outer green rubber nozzles! I've owned Waterpiks since the early 80's and this is THE 1st to ever get mold...nasty. Took it off and soaked the head and tube with bleach. It now appears every 3 months I will need to soak the head and tube in bleach to prevent/retard mold growth. If it starts to gather mold sooner I'll chunk it in the recycle bin and buy something else, but not another Waterpik.

It worked great until it broke two weeks later. Now it leaks a lot and I can't get it apart to try to fix it without breaking it completely. It broke a few days after the return period.

I was excited to receive & install my new shower head, It has a couple nice functions but It is a bummer only 3/5 work correctly so right away I'm not getting what I paid for. The different functions that do work are nice but the quality just isn't there. Would I still buy it knowing what I know now? Probably not so many different brands and styles out there you can choose from for the same price.

Worked well for the first few months, but once I moved the settings for the water pressure, the head loosened over time. Water began dripping out of the sides, the face became loose. If you buy, just keep on one water pressure option.

The shower head arrived with scratches on the installation parts, so it was obviously used. I was surprised by this, but I figured, what the heck, for fifteen bucks, I'm not gonna complain.

I've owned this shower head for less than four months, and it's come apart. It now leaks around the edges, and makes an awful noise unless you twist it just so. Would not recommend.

I bought this because I saw it on a listicle about great things you should treat yourself to. In retrospect, this is part of how I eventually learned to identify (and stop following) click-bait. This thing was so horrible, I took it down after one shower. I seriously thought about getting out early and finishing with the old one, but decided to give it a fair shot. I live in an apartment and the old one was the nasty free one that came pre-installed, if that helps put things in perspective. This is good for $15, but it definitely shouldn't have the word "luxury" in the name; the settings look a lot better than they actually are. I never really thought of my apartment as having low water pressure. However, this thing made it impossible to feel like I actually washed the soap off of my skin. I'm only giving it a second star because it has the "pause" setting which helps conserve water and can be useful if that's important to you and you don't care about how bad the rest of it is.

I had owned a Waterpik NML-603 Flexible Shower Head for many years and then the shower head fell apart. I ordered another one and had a professional plumber install it. No matter what the plumber did, the new shower head leaked at the top connection. Had to return it and bought a hand held shower which is holding up beautifully. Very disappointed with this purchase.

I've used these Waterpiks for about 7 years. But these are being made more and more cheaply of late. We bought one in May of 2016 and the neck broke this week (January 2017). We bought a replacement this week and the new one didn't even survive the install. The neck broke as we were tightening it and we could see a ton of tiny voids (air pockets) in the plastic of the neck. Very flimsy. Never again.

JAN 2015: My husband is 6'2", and I'm 5'2". With this wonderful shower head, we can both get a great shower. It's very easy to adjust and tons of water comes out. It's the 4th one I've purchased in 18 years, so they don't really last forever.

SEPT 2015 UPDATE: Well, this new model has been in use for 9 months, and it is DEFINITELY not as well made as the previous ones. The jointed ball-and-socket tubing broke in one spot after 2 months and it wouldn't stay upright anymore. Since it is on warranty, Waterpik replaced it. But the replacement one broke in August when the inner tubing got pinched from us turning it to spray the walls while cleaning the shower which we've always done with previous models. Once the inner tubing gets pinched/kinked, water will not spray through the shower-head, only dribble. Waterpik refused to replace it under warranty a second time, though, even though we've only been using in 7 months. My previous 5 star rating is now being dropped down to 1 star since it is obvious that the quality of these things has gone downhill. I don't mind purchasing a new shower head every 5 to 10 years, but certainly, a shower head should last longer than 2 or 7 months.

Love the flexible hose but it leaks where you mount it to the shower arm. If you can handle the small leak dripping down then it might be ok for you. But beware, the company will NOT stand behind its warranty without a receipt, period. I had another product with a lifetime warranty, called the company about it not working and basically they told me without a receipt, nothing could be done. Since I didn't have a receipt from 5 years ago, I was stuck with a broken showerhead that was supposed to be covered for life. Not a cheap one either. Basically, I bought this showerhead before I had a warranty issue on another Waterpik showerhead or I would have never purchased this one and will not ever in the future. Companies need to figure out what makes customers want to buy their products, here is a hint: stand behind your product especially in the event that it breaks for no apparent reason.

Totally disappointed in this shower head. Waterflow was terrible, quality even worse. We've had similar showerheads in the past, and loved them. This model must be made by totally different vendors. We no longer need to worry about being disappointed with this purchase since the showerhead totally seperated from the flex hose and couldn't be replaced. It was actually satisfying to remove it and throw it in the trash. It may be we just received a lemon, seems like most reviews are favorable, but that was NOT our experience. Biggest disappointment was the waterflow, followed closely by overall quality of this particular unit. If you don't mind having to run around in your shower to get wet, then this is the showerhead you want. On a brighter note, if you wait just a few weeks the waterflow will improve......after the showerhead comes off in your hand.

Great flow, love the size. Dont need the extra settings. It seems as though if I dont have the head turned just right on the right setting it is very very very loud. I almost removed it and send it back.

Edit: January 4th 2017. This should have been removed and sent back. Immediately. It has sat on the same quiet setting since it was installed. We turned it to use one of the functions we purchased it for and it fell apart and started spraying water all over the place while trying to take a shower. I'll be going to our local Ferguson's plumbing tomorrow and getting something with a warranty

This shower head is really excellent at first. Easy installation and all that. However, after several months, the plastic face couldn't handle the pressure of the water and it started to push out, creating water to leak and flow all around the perimeter. I would not purchase again. Better off just buying something a little more high end that will last longer.

When I first received it, the shower head was amazing and we all loved it. Fast forward a little over a month later and it is now garbage. From using the pause feature it seems to have worn out and now water sprays from the sides. Save your money and buy a better shower head that will last you longer.

This product is awful. The settings were not distinct. Each melded with the next one. Most of the unit is plastic junk. Began leaking through the face and could not get a decent spray on any setting. There is no warranty and I couldn't even find a company website. I don't know if I was sold a defective or damaged product, but I can't even exchange to find out. I would look elsewhere.

Took a chance on a lightening deal and lost. This shower head feels cheap out of the box, and performs even worse. It literally sounds like a freight train in the shower. I can't emphasize enough how loud the water is running through this shower head. Tomorrow will be a trip to HD and Lowes to find something quiet to install in its place.