I’ve been drinking distilled water every single day since 2018, and so has the rest of my family. It’s one of those changes that started as an experiment and quickly became something we’d never go back from. The benefits have been real, noticeable, and – in some cases – genuinely surprising.
If you’re curious about what distilled water actually does for your body and why so many people are making the switch, here’s everything I know from years of personal experience alongside the research I’ve done along the way.
What is distilled water?
Distilled water is water that has been purified through distillation – a process where water is heated until it turns to steam, and that steam is then cooled and condensed back into liquid in a separate container. Everything that was dissolved in the original water gets left behind: minerals, chemicals, bacteria, heavy metals, and other contaminants.
The result is very pure water – close to pure H2O with virtually nothing else in it.
When we first got our Megahome water distiller, we tested our tap water with a TDS meter (Total Dissolved Solids) before and after distilling. Our tap water measured 220 ppm – 220 parts per million of dissolved substances in what we thought was clean drinking water. After distilling, it measured just 2 ppm. That result alone was enough to convince us we were doing the right thing.
The benefits of drinking distilled water
It’s free from contaminants
This is the big one. Tap water – even treated, supposedly safe tap water – can contain chlorine, fluoride, heavy metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other substances that end up in the water supply. Distillation removes virtually all of these.
You might not notice any of them in your tap water. We didn’t, not obviously anyway – although ours did have an odd smell at times and I didn’t really like the taste of tap water. But when you switch to distilled water and your tap water starts to taste noticeably different by comparison, it makes you wonder what you were drinking before.
Improved hydration
Because distilled water is pure H2O with nothing else in it, it may be more easily absorbed by the body than water containing dissolved minerals and chemicals. Many people who switch to distilled water report feeling better hydrated, and that’s been our experience too.
This matters more than it might sound. Proper hydration affects energy levels, concentration, digestion, skin health, and virtually every system in the body. If you want to understand how much water you actually need to drink, that’s worth reading alongside this.
It may support kidney health
Some people choose distilled water because it contains no minerals, which means no mineral buildup in the body over time. For people prone to kidney stones – which can be caused by calcium and other mineral deposits – drinking water with no mineral content may help reduce the risk of recurrence. It’s worth discussing with a doctor if this is a concern for you, but it’s one of the reasons some people specifically seek out distilled water.
Better tasting food and drinks
We use distilled water for everything – cooking, hot drinks, the lot. And honestly, our tea and coffee taste noticeably better. When you remove the chlorine and other substances from your water, you remove the flavour they bring with it. What’s left tastes cleaner and more neutral, which means the actual flavour of what you’re making comes through more clearly. And freshly distilled water, still slightly warm from the distiller – there’s nothing quite like it. Tap water genuinely tastes unpleasant to us now by comparison.
No limescale
This one surprised me when we first switched. Our kettle used to get clogged with limescale regularly – that white chalky buildup that comes from minerals in tap water. Since switching to distilled water, our kettle looks practically brand new even after several years of daily use. No limescale, no buildup, no problem. The same goes for anything else we use distilled water in.
It purifies water naturally
One thing I really appreciate about distillation is that it’s a completely natural process. There are no chemicals added, no questionable filter materials for the water to pass through, no additives of any kind. You’re simply boiling water into steam and condensing it back into liquid – the same process that happens in nature with evaporation and rainfall. For anyone who cares about what goes into their body, that simplicity is genuinely reassuring.
Better for skin and hair
Because distilled water is free from chlorine and minerals, some people find it gentler on skin and hair than tap water – both for drinking and washing. When you’re drinking water free from chemical additives every day, it’s reasonable to think that has some effect on your skin over time.
Peace of mind
This one might sound less scientific, but it matters. Knowing that the water your family drinks every day contains nothing but water is genuinely reassuring. No chlorine, no fluoride, no lead from old pipes, no pharmaceutical traces, no agricultural runoff. Just water. For us, that peace of mind has been one of the most consistent benefits of all.
Less plastic waste
Before we got our distiller, we were going through around 12 litres of bottled mineral water a week. That’s a lot of plastic. Making our own distilled water at home eliminated all of that overnight. It’s better for the environment, cheaper in the long run, and produces consistently purer water than anything we were buying in bottles.
Is it good to drink distilled water every day?
Yes – and we’ve been doing exactly that since 2018 with no ill effects. The most common concern you’ll see raised is that distilled water has no minerals, and therefore you’re missing out on calcium and magnesium from your water. But the reality is that you get those minerals from food, not water – and if you’re eating a reasonably varied diet, the mineral content of your drinking water makes very little practical difference.
I’ve covered this in much more detail in my post on whether distilled water is safe to drink, which addresses the main concerns and myths around drinking it daily.
Does distilled water dehydrate you?
This is one of the most common myths about distilled water and it’s worth addressing directly. The claim is that because distilled water has no minerals, it somehow pulls minerals out of your body and leaves you more dehydrated than before.
That hasn’t been our experience at all. We’ve been drinking distilled water as our main source of hydration for eight years – daily, in decent quantities – and none of us have experienced dehydration or any mineral deficiency as a result. Your minerals come from food, not water, and your body is well equipped to regulate its own mineral balance when you’re eating normally.
If anything, we feel better hydrated drinking distilled water than we ever did drinking tap water or bottled mineral water. The dehydration claim gets repeated a lot online but it isn’t backed up by evidence, and it certainly hasn’t been our lived experience.
What does distilled water do to your body?
In simple terms, it hydrates you with pure water and nothing else. No chlorine, no fluoride, no heavy metals, no pharmaceutical traces – just water doing what water is supposed to do.
Over time, drinking distilled water means your body isn’t processing the additional substances that come with tap water every day. Whether that translates into measurable health improvements is hard to prove, but the logic of removing unnecessary contaminants from something you consume multiple times a day seems sound to me. After eight years, the changes we’ve noticed – better tasting water, no limescale, less plastic waste, general peace of mind – have been consistent and real.
As for anecdotal benefits, we all have clear skin, and me and Ben – now in our 40s – still don’t have grey hair. That’s actually something we came across when researching distilled water all those years ago, the claim that it can help reverse or slow greying hair. A bold claim, and while we weren’t greying when we started, we still aren’t yet. Make of that what you will!
What distilled water won’t do is replace the minerals you need. Those come from eating a varied diet, not from your drinking water. As long as you’re eating well, drinking distilled water daily is perfectly safe and for many people, preferable.
How to make distilled water at home
Making distilled water at home is much simpler than most people expect. A countertop water distiller sits on your kitchen worktop, you fill it with tap water, switch it on, and a few hours later you have a jug of pure distilled water ready to drink. One batch takes around four hours and produces roughly four litres.
We use the Megahome water distiller and have done since 2018 – it runs daily in our kitchen and is still going strong. You can read more about how to make distilled water at home if you want the full breakdown of what to look for in a distiller and how the process works.
Keeping it clean is straightforward too – a quick blast with our powerful spray kitchen tap and swill between uses, with an occasional deep clean once or twice a year. My guide on how to clean a countertop water distiller covers everything you need to know.
The benefits at a glance
For a quick summary, here’s what we’ve personally noticed and what the research supports:
- Free from chlorine, fluoride, heavy metals, and other contaminants
- Cleaner, more neutral taste – and better tasting hot drinks
- No limescale in kettles or appliances
- Significantly less plastic waste compared to buying bottled water
- Peace of mind knowing exactly what’s in your water
- May support kidney health by reducing mineral buildup
- Potentially better for skin and hair over time
Final thoughts
Switching to distilled water was one of the best changes we made for our household, and eight years in, I’d recommend it without hesitation. The benefits have been real and consistent, and the process of making it at home has become completely second nature.
If you want to understand more about why I personally drink distilled water and how we got started, that post goes into the full story in more detail. And if you’re still weighing up whether it’s right for you, the what is distilled water used for post gives a broader picture of all the ways it can be useful beyond just drinking.
Discover more from Healthy Vix
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.