Quote Originally Posted by youngsmoke View Post
I am also currious if anyone has advice for forming lather with hard water. Does it make a difference? is there anything that I can do to compensate/ get thicker lather? I am getting a decent lather, thick enough to mostly protect my face durring my shave (though I am still using a cartridge until i get my straight back from honing). but I don't get the kind of thick creamy foam that I have seen in pics posted by others (if that makes sense)
It depends a lot on the composition of the soap or cream you're using, in my experience.

I live in an area of the UK with very hard water, all the ground in this area is made of limestone and clay, and the water is loaded with calcium and magnesium carbonates.

I have always had very poor results with glycerine based soaps. Annoyingly I can't use any of the 'decent' handmade soaps with the water we have here. I have tried Honeybee Sues, Mama Bears, Colleens, QED, and others, any whilst they all smell and shave great, with the water we have here they don't produce a lather that stays for more than 30 seconds.

The good news is, there are also plenty of soaps and creams that work great. Anything by Trumpers, Castle Forbes, AOS, Proraso, Tabac, MWF (Mitchells Wool Fat) has always worked just fine for me.

A lot of it is just experimentation, see if you can buy samples of different products to see how they work for you.