Thread: Soap and Lather

I got my unscented soap from SRD and have great success with the soap. By that I mean I was able to make creamy lather on the second try after getting reply from Don on how to make lather. Which wasn't exactly complicated but I didn't know better. Anyway. I tried another soap from another source which was advertised as all natural and supposedly gives good lather which I don't doubt but I am having a difficult time making the lather I am able to make from the SRD soap. I tried four times but all I was able to get was foamy little bubbles and I can hear it fizzles away. No matter how hard or long I tried with my brush I just couldn't got a creamy lather that stays.

My technique, from a newbie that is, is just soaking the brush in hot tap water while taking a shower. A thin layer of hot water to soften the soap as well. Then work the brush into the soap. Then bring the brush to my mug or bowl to work up a lather, add water if necessary.

My question is what makes a shaving soap render good creamy lather that stays? And why other soaps can't do the same?

Thank you.

Quality ingredients for one. Glycerin comes into play, or tallow depending on the soap.
I'll tell you right now, I have about 60 soaps/creams. SRD is probably one of the best shave soaps you will come across. They use top quality ingredients in their soap, that's why it lathers so well. To make lather, simply put some warm water on top of the soap, allow it to soften the soap a bit. With a damp/wet brush, swirl it around for a good 15-30 seconds or so until you see a rich creamy lather form. Now, you can transfer that to a scuttle, and then repeat the process, or just lather your face. Check our WIKI. There are some excellent tutorials on soap making. Check this link here:

Category:Lather - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Also, Mantic has some awesome youtube videos....

Rich

Shake the brush more before whipping the soap.

You are describing suds rather than lather, which happens when you start with too much wet. Once you have lather formed you can work water in a few drops at a time. You may want to practice this until you "break" the lather and it collapses into slime or suds again a few times until you get a feel for how much moisture you can/need to add before you start shaving.

Starting with suds is hard to recover from. If I spill a little too much water into my mug or forget to shake my brush, I toss the suds and start over.

My recipe consists of:
1-Pour some hot water in the mug to soften the soap. I use a glycerin based soap so this should be for maybe 10 secs, otherwise I'd let it soften for about 30 secs
2-I drain the mug and pour 5 drops of pure glycerin in it. I set aside the mug
3-Fully wet the brush by putting it below the open very hot faucet for about 10 secs with the handle facing down (and the hair facing up of course). During this process I close the hairs with my hand a bit in order to get 'em fully wet. Close the faucet
4-Turn the brush with the handle up (and the hair down) and wait until it stops dripping
5-I shake lightly the brush 3 times
6-I start to make the lather by working the brush into the mug a little hard at first, but when I notice that there are some suds in it, I release the pressure on the soap and start to work the suds into lather and.. voilá

Hope this works for you.... good luck

Originally Posted by IanS

Shake the brush more before whipping the soap.

You are describing suds rather than lather, which happens when you start with too much wet. Once you have lather formed you can work water in a few drops at a time. You may want to practice this until you "break" the lather and it collapses into slime or suds again a few times until you get a feel for how much moisture you can/need to add before you start shaving.

Starting with suds is hard to recover from. If I spill a little too much water into my mug or forget to shake my brush, I toss the suds and start over.

Thanks all for info.

IanS, I think your analysis makes sense.
I will give it yet another try with less water to begin with and sees if I can get lather this time. I certainly don't want to fault the vendor or the soap. But my face needs a rest tonight ....

And one more thing, I watch a few video online from youtube, and invariably people would work the lather in a different container, a mug or a bowl mostly a bowl after the brush is saturated with soap. And that's what I do, I whip the lather in a separate mug once I think I have enough soap on the bristle. Any advice on that. (I have success with the SRD soap with this method though I think my mug is too tall and narrow for making lather but for now it will do)

Thanks.

I did that my first few shaves. It works okay with a stiff (new) boar bristle... but it just was not happening with my badger hair brush. The bristles were way too soft to penetrate the soap puck enough to gather soap. They'd start lathering a tiny bit of soap on top of the puck.

So I started putting the puck into my mug, getting a lather started, then removing the puck and finishing the lather.
This worked but getting the slippery puck out while leaving the lather in wasn't easy. So finally I resorted to just lathering on top of the puck. Yes I use 2-3x as much soap this way, but the lather is just so vastly superior I relate it as this being the proper amount and the 1/3-1/2 being not enough soap. I don't want to be stingy when it comes to getting a smooth shave.

Another option I considered was using a pocketknife to shave off whisps of the soap (single use pucks if you will). I never tried it, but it seemed to work fine tonight when I used the last few scraps of a puck that was almost gone and it seems using the shavings would be about the same process.

Yes, I too watched the videos where they move from the puck to the mug... particularly that one fellow with the booming voice, and prominent mole on his cheek. I finally decided that he must be using cream in a tin (like Noxema) and not soap, as it literally took him a half second to fully load his brush. If I did that with my brush on a puck of soap, you wouldn't even notice I'd touched soap with it yet.

I refer to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7Aj...eature=channel