Thread: I need help from an expert in soap lather making

thanks again, I'll try what you've advised and see if it works. Just so you know, I do hold the soap in the my hand when I load the brush.

Originally Posted by Warbler

I soak the soap in the shaving bowl(I soak the brush in a plastic glass). I soak them both for about five minutes. After the five minutes, I empty both containers, I remove the soap from the shaving bowl and sit it on the sink. I then add a little water to the shaving bowl. I then load the brush and try to build lather.

Why do you soak the soap? You don't need to do that as it only softens the soap too much and cause the breaking after drying.

I think you have too much water in the process. If you only pick up the brush out of the water without squeezing it it won't work.
There is no mystique in the lathering process. It is not magic. It is only learn how to handle soap(or cream) and water ratio.

I'm not sure what is the point of trying to learn to do uberlather if person did not get the basic lather right?

You might try face lathering, its what I do. I think its more forgiving of ratios and all that stuff, but perhaps that just b/c I'm used to it. Anyway, I just wet the brush, shake it out a little, rub it on the wet soap, rub that around my face (its kind of like "soap concentrate" at this point), then just start building lather on the spread out soap, adding water as needed by dipping the brush. If you start with a barely damp brush you should be able to hit the sweet spot pretty easy, I'd think.

Originally Posted by TonyJ

Why do you soak the soap? You don't need to do that as it only softens the soap too much and cause the breaking after drying.

I think you have too much water in the process. If you only pick up the brush out of the water without squeezing it it won't work.
There is no mystique in the lathering process. It is not magic. It is only learn how to handle soap(or cream) and water ratio.

I'm not sure what is the point of trying to learn to do uberlather if person did not get the basic lather right?

Depending on the soap, you may be right or soaking the soap can be very helpful. Hard triple-milled soaps sometimes benefit from soaking the top with a teaspoon of water. Glycerin doesn't, IME.

Originally Posted by TonyJ

There is no mystique in the lathering process. It is not magic. It is only learn how to handle soap(or cream) and water ratio.

Tony although I tend to agree with you on this, the shear amount of threads asking just these questions, are why we answer them again and again.. Obviously it isn't as easy to all people....


I'm not sure what is the point of trying to learn to do uberlather if person did not get the basic lather right?

"What many don't realize is that you can use just the parts of that Uber method that you want to..."

Hmmmm just proved that point huh???

I think I may have misread the instructions on soap lathering here Making basic soap lather - Straight Razor Place Wiki I thought it said to soak the soap as well as the brush, but it just says to drop a little water on the soap. It doesn't say whether you should do this before soaking the brush or just before you start to load your brush. I wasn't trying to learn uberlather just yet, I just wanted basic usable lather that was better than what you get out of those cans. Yes, I do squeeze and shake the water out of the brush before loading it.

on another note, I'm sorry if I should have read other threads on this subject instead of creating my own.

Originally Posted by Warbler

I think I may have misread the instructions on soap lathering here Making basic soap lather - Straight Razor Place Wiki I thought it said to soak the soap as well as the brush, but it just says to drop a little water on the soap. It doesn't say whether you should do this before soaking the brush or just before you start to load your brush. I wasn't trying to learn uberlather just yet, I just wanted basic usable lather that was better than what you get out of those cans. Yes, I do squeeze and shake the water out of the brush before loading it.

on another note, I'm sorry if I should have read other threads on this subject instead of creating my own.

I think you are well on your way to figuring this thing out. Remember it is not rocket science to figure out how to get the water soap ratio right. I had trouble too when starting with soap. Like you it was too wet or else it just dried up really quick on my face.

This is how I figured it out when starting out. After shaking out your brush whether you soak it or just run it under water, start brushing your opposite hand with the brush this puts a little water in your off hand. Load your brush with soap it just takes maybe less than 5 seconds to get enough soap.

Then start making the lather in the palm of your wet off hand. You can really feel in your hand when the lather gets to where you want to use it. Then grab your bowl and scoop it off your hand. There is still enough soap in your brush to build more lather in your hand one or two more times. I was able to completely fill my bowl with lather. Eventually you can just skip making the lather on your hand once you figure out how much water you need vs how long you load the brush with soap. You just need to get a similar amount of water in the bowl as you had on your hand.

You may find that you don't need any extra water at all, depends on how well you shake out your soaked brush, you may find that this is too much water and may want to shake it out more. In any event I did it like this and after about 3-5 shaves I had a real good idea of how much water to add to my dish for how I shake out my brush and how much soap I load. No problems for making it in my bowl. Good Luck.

well, I tried again today and failed again. I don't know what it is. Maybe my water is too hard or not hard enough. In disgust, I threw away the four pieces of soap. Its obviously not going to work. Its either to liquidity or just flat. Is there an easy way to test the hardness of your water?

I am seeing a pattern here that I do not agree with, at least 2 people have used the reference of 3-5 seconds to load enough soap on the brush...

I think maybe there is a little more variance then we think in water then, because with my very hard water 3-5 seconds of loading soap on the brush would not accomplish anything at all... I swirl an almost dry brush on the top of the soap puck for at least 30 seconds pushing and swirling pretty hard to load soap before ever trying to build lather... In that thread you will see where I say the soap should look clumpy, on the brush before you start, I think Mantic shows or describes the same thing... My advice is forget the time references and load until it is clumpy first...

Also since you are now shopping for a soap you might want to go with one of the proved hard water performers I listed...

hmm, maybe I'll get the soap out the trash and try again, this time loading more soap.