Thread: Lathering issue

My area has very hard water. I use Palmolive sticks grated and compressed into a puck and make the lather in a separate bowl sitting in a basin full of hot water.

Elbow grease does it for me, think whipping cream up or making a meringue, I beat loads of air into the lather whilst dipping the brush tip in hot water occasionally, I end up with lather that will defy gravity if the bowl is held upside down.

The lather works equally well for straight shaving or the occasional foray with my old DE.

I like my lather at a meringue consistency.

Like odset I use Palmolive grated into a puck, but I use bottles cold.water to soak my brush.
I put the remaining lather from my brush back into my soap bowl.
When making lather I add a bit of shaving cream and glycerin to the bowl, and after shaking out my brush a bit I mix up a lather in the soap bowl.
It might use a bit more soap by Palmolive is cheap as chips so I don't really care. I add more bottled water from the cup I soak my brush in if required.

A lot of god advice above. Try the shave cream/water ratio first. Then move to the bottled water. If you can't create a good lather then you'll know it's the soap.

My brother gave me an Edwin Jagger shaving soap in a bowl because he said that he didn't like it. After using it I realized that he probably had lathering issues with it. The EJ soap requires a bit more water to get a nice lather that won't dry out on your face. I was able to get a nice lather with some water, but it started to dry after being on my face for a minute.

What I do for lathering EJ is soak my brush in water for about a minute. I then pour hot or warm water into the soap bowl and empty it several seconds later, just to get the soap wet and softer. I allow the brush to drip dry, then give it a slight shake. I lather in the soap bowl for about a minute to get a nice, dense lather; some guys mentioned meringue consistency. I then apply the lather to my face.

My area has tap water that is a bit hard, but I never have issues lathering with any of the different shaving soaps or creams I have tried.

Keep practicing on your lather building skills.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I'll try giving it a little more water and see if it helps to add some on the puck before.
My apartment has horribly hard water ( the kind you can not see through when you first fill a glass ) so the bottled water might be a good choice

Let's see what the outcome is and hopefully I get some better lather then!

I used up a whole cake of MWF trying to get it right. Now that I've got it dialed in, I don't want to use anything else.

I too had/sometimes still have trouble with lather. I've been sticking to Cella lately. I have hard water too. Laurens and JimmyHAD hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. I soak my brush in hot water and put about a teaspoon or so on top of the soap while I shower. I then let the water drip out of the brush and give it a shake. I then pour the water off of the soap puck into my bowl. I then swirl the brush on top of the soap for an 8 count. It is just about right when the peaks on the brush just start to sag a little.

Lathering has been the hardest part to me. I had to experiment with how long I loaded the brush and how much water before I got it right. I also noticed that while shaving if the lather didn't rinse off the blade cleanly that it correlated with the lather being a little too dry. However, you don't want the lather running off of the blade either. As has been said it's a delicate balance and you'll only figure it out with practice. I suggest loading the brush the same way each time and experiment with adding different amounts of water and go from one extreme (too dry) to the other (too wet) just too see how the lather reacts and feels when shaving, and then try to find the happy medium. Good luck!