Thread: building a lather with shaving soap

I found this to be very helpful Illustrated Guide to Making Basic Soap Lather - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Today I did it according to this and I got to much lather for my bowl to handle

Also check out Mantic 59 on youtube

Also try mixing a little shave cream in there and you will get a richer lather.

what ive been doing is
step...
1.soak brush
2.drain excess water from brush
3.grab at the top of the bristles
4.couple rounds in the soap dish
5.few drops of water in a bowl...lots of swirling
6.application

my brush and soap are wilkinson sword. made by gillette canada. i dunno much about them my gf got my all my straight razor stuff for christmas. my water is hard

You will have to experiment with soap : water ratios but hard water will not help your lathermaking at all.
Try a tiny amount of baking soda added to the water or collect rain water or get some distilled water.
Some soaps may lather ok in hard water depending on their surfactant content.

The Wiki does have some good advice, but nothing replaces practice and experience. Keep at it and when you find the right combination of soap, water and brush swirls stick to it. You'll be getting great lather before you know it.

Originally Posted by DeathMetalDremel

what ive been doing is
step...
1.soak brush
2.drain excess water from brush
3.grab at the top of the bristles
4.couple rounds in the soap dish
5.few drops of water in a bowl...lots of swirling
6.application

my brush and soap are wilkinson sword. made by gillette canada. i dunno much about them my gf got my all my straight razor stuff for christmas. my water is hard

A couple isn't very clear. You should be swirling on the soap for at least 20 seconds, maybe even 30. You should be generating a kind of "prelather" on the soap itself. And only add more water to the soap if your cream seems too thick,t dry and pasty.

Originally Posted by JimR

A couple isn't very clear. You should be swirling on the soap for at least 20 seconds, maybe even 30. You should be generating a kind of "prelather" on the soap itself. And only add more water to the soap if your cream seems too thick,t dry and pasty.

+1

Some soaps, depending on the stiffness of the brush, can use 50~100 swirls on a cake of soap, especially if the soap has dried out a bit.

I have a question. When you make the lather in the bowl, do you want to start putting it on your beard just before it gets to the really thick lather stage. That way when you massage it into your beard you make the really thick stuff, or do you bring it to full stage in the bowl. I want to try it this way beacuse I've been building it on my face and would like to see if this works better for me. Thanks and God Bless!!!

Originally Posted by JimR

A couple isn't very clear. You should be swirling on the soap for at least 20 seconds, maybe even 30. You should be generating a kind of "prelather" on the soap itself. And only add more water to the soap if your cream seems too thick,t dry and pasty.

Originally Posted by rrp1501

I have a question. When you make the lather in the bowl, do you want to start putting it on your beard just before it gets to the really thick lather stage. That way when you massage it into your beard you make the really thick stuff, or do you bring it to full stage in the bowl. I want to try it this way beacuse I've been building it on my face and would like to see if this works better for me. Thanks and God Bless!!!

Well, as far as I know you can't really "overbuild" lather--as long as you don't keep adding water. So once you've hit the sweet spot in the bowl, go ahead and put it to your face. Although, it is usually a good idea to work the lather on your face a bit to help soften your whiskers more, and to work the lather into your beard and get your whiskers standing up.

I personally don't use a bowl at all any more; I much prefer face lathering from the get-go.

So in my few weeks building lather I've tried about every tip on here and on youtube and narrowed it down to this ..
First I have 2 bowls, pottery style I bought them from the thrift store for a dollar and they have been working great go have a look and try to find two sizes so the one can fit well in the other. I also have the bowl I whip my lather in was unglazed pat I think it might help it to hold heat better but that's just imo.
So 1st if you got time put a tea pot on the stove to boil
2nd fill sink with hot tap water put mixing bowl and brush in water
3rd drip a thin layer of the hot water on the puck of soap and then put brush back in sink
4th hop in and out of shower depending on how long you took your water pot should be boiling
5th fill your bigger bowl 3/4 full boiling water. After dumping water from sink out of mixer set it into hot bowl
6th AND I really think this helps ! Pour the thin layer of soap water off puck into mixer bowl
7 I dip the tips of my brush into the Hot stove water, get your brush nice and soapy on your puck and start beating to get a real hot lather

I really like using the double boiler method, and it'd pretty sweet if u just start it b4 your shower your not waiting 4 water to boil. If you can't you can always just use hot tap water and follow other steps, and keep mixer in sink with some hot water to keep it warm !

Good luck. Just beat that stuff till its like whipcream or barbasal then u know its ready.

I thought I was going crazy on my first shave because I couldn't get the soap to lather. It turns out that there was a nearly invisible partially soap-coated layer of plastic over the soap. It was enough to lather for a second, and then it disapeared magically. That's probably not your situation, but I thought I'd share Good luck