Update on my well water that turns everything orange

So I had posted earlier about my well water turning my skin and clothes orange. It is my most read blog. We had put in a Whirlpool brand whole house water filter inside the house. At first we put the mid-range filter in. It was more cloth style filter. It didn't work. Stained more clothes. I was really bummed. So after more research on the web I was even more convinced that we needed a water softener. As you can see in the photo of the first filter we used, there is like orange flakes caught in the filter. What is that? I don't know  if it's rust, mineral or something else. However, I did the research on the web to see what we could do if it was rust and the answer was again a water softener. 

Our next step before we put in the water softener was to try to higher priced filter that went with the Whirlpool filter. It's supposed to be a charcoal filter. So far I'm not turning as orange and I haven't seen really any clothes turn orange, but that's not really saying much as most of them are already spotted orange. Just the other day I threw out this really cute summer dress of my daughters because it was 3/4 orange. It was hideous because of what our water did to it. If it hadn't, I probably would've been able to resale it. My toenails are growing out whiter. Either that or they got a good cleaning and exfoliation when I spent all day at the lake which is very possible. A few days before I went to the lake, somebody commented on my "hip" toenail polish color I was spotting. They were utterly shocked when I said I haven't painted my toes in years and that was the result of my well water. 

So if you have any  recommendations or advice based on experience or qualifications, please please let me know as we are just trying to get this figured out. Thanks!

This next photo is the best orange remover stuff ever! What I love about it it's septic safe! Just pour it on the effected area and it turns from orange to white! I found it at Fred Meyers or Wal-Mart and i runs around $5 a bottle.