In a brief executive order (EO) titled “Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure In Showerheads” and dated April 9, 2025, President Trump “ordered” the repeal of the 13,000-word regulation defining “showerhead” as published in the Energy Department’s Energy Conservation Program. A supporting fact sheet declares that the White House is undoing “the Left’s war on water pressure” and is ending “the Obama-Biden war on water pressure” to “make America’s showers great again.” Notably, the EO does not outlaw the production or purchase of low-flow showerheads but just changes the federal government’s definition. The EO continues the administration’s heavy-handed editorial style: Its directive essentially recommends the distillation of a lengthy, multipart document that runs to 13,000 words down to a short sentence. If the OED’s definition is similar to that of the Cambridge Dictionary—ten words: “the part of a shower that water flows out of”—then the edict represents a stunningly muscular edit that removes 99.99 percent of the prior text in its new version. The fact sheet wagers that “overregulation chokes the American economy, entrenches bureaucrats, and stifles personal freedom.” The showerhead definition “served a radical green agenda that made life worse for everyday Americans.” With this EO, Trump also takes aim at water conservation: The prior standard set the “maximum water use allowed for any showerhead manufactured after January 1, 1994,” as 2.5 gallons per minute (GPM). The goal of this figure was to help reduce water use in American households. According to information published by the EPA that was last updated in 2024, showering accounted “for nearly 17 percent of residential indoor water use—for the average family, that adds up to nearly 40 gallons per day. That’s nearly 1.2 trillion gallons of water used in the United States annually just for showering.” These figures previously prompted the development of the WaterSense, a label awarded to products that use 2.0 GPM of water. Many low-flow showerheads use even less water, like 1.5 GPM, with some available models using as little as 0.625 GPM. As many parts of the country are experiencing intensified droughts due to climate change, low-flow devices that save both water and money seem like a smart option. Trump is recommending the same standard of 2.5 GPM but without all the other descriptions. This EO, according to the White House, “frees Americans from excessive regulations that turned a basic household item into a bureaucratic nightmare. No longer will showerheads be weak and worthless.” Products with multiple individual showerheads and a body spray (Courtesy Department of Energy) His Beautiful Hair When signing the EO this week, Trump said, “I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” according to The New York Times. He continued, “I stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.” Trump’s remarks echo prior comments on the subject. As reported by The New York Times, in 2023, he told a group of Republican leaders at dinner that he has “this gorgeous head of hair—when I take a shower, I want water to pour down on me. When you go into these new homes with showers, the water drips down slowly, slowly.” In a 2020 clip that aired on Fox News, he quipped, “You take a shower, the water doesn’t come out,” “You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair—I don’t know about you—but it has to be perfect. Perfect.” Nozzlegate May Stimulate New Showerhead Designs At the core of the existential showerhead debate is the criteria for multinozzle showerheads. The “Obama administration ordered the 2.5-gallon limit to be applied to each shower head, not each nozzle,” per The New York Times, which meant that devices with multiple spray sources were counted as a single showerhead. Trump, during his first administration, changed the definition to mean that each nozzle was counted individually, so that each could allow a flow of 2.5 GPM. There were no limits on the nozzle count. In a proposed rule, Trump’s first administration released concept designs for potential arrangements with up to eight nozzles, which meant the device could emit up to 20 GPM. What would a multiheaded, gold-plated showerhead that spews dozens of gallons of water per minute look like? Here is one imagining, via ChatGPT. (OpenAI/ChatGPT) The sketches raise a potential brand collaboration: As more businesses and individuals seek to curry favor with Trump, what company might seek to deliver bathroom products that respond to Trump’s brief. What would a multiheaded, gold-plated showerhead that spews dozens of gallons of water per minute look like? Here is one imagining, via ChatGPT: Perhaps we can expect to see water-intensive devices like this as an early trend for 2026 bath products? Time will tell. No More Dumb Wars Trump has long had a problem with low-flow showerheads. During his first presidency, according to the fact sheet, “President Trump sought to undo this definition in his first term by publishing extensive analysis and a formal rule—however, Biden undid this progress and the shower wars continued. The government should not waste taxpayer time and money writing another elaborate definition for a term that has a simple definition. No market failure justifies this intrusion: Americans pay for their own water and should be free to choose their showerheads without federal meddling.” This latest EO continues Trump’s tirade against regulations for products used in buildings and interiors. Earlier in his term, he complained about light bulbs, among other household products. The fact sheet continued: “It’s not just showers—the Biden Administration aggressively targeted everyday appliances like gas stoves, water heaters, washing machines, furnaces, dishwashers, and more, waging war on the reliable tools Americans depend on daily. These appliances worked perfectly fine before Biden’s meddling piled on convoluted regulations that made those appliances worse. President Trump is slashing red tape and ending Biden’s dumb war on things that work.”