Brushing and building....
When I asked the barber (I went for a cut and shave too) about this who was cutting my hair, he said that he had trained as a lather boy for a few years before being let loose on the shaving.
He told me that he was always told to build the lather using circular motions, and in fact anything you like.
He pointed out that some of the brushes he had used were possibly twenty years old of daily round the clock abuse and that although tips had worn down they were still fine.
He recommended that rather than caring for the brush too much you use it to get the best possible shave, as if the later did not happen you would probably just ditch the brush anyway wondering what good it did.
He pointed out that you close the fingers around the bristles with the back of the brush in the palm of your hand (I read this some place too) and give a real good scrubbing, working the lather well into the beard in circular, up, down, left and right. Furthermore that when building a lather, use clockwise then anticlockwise circular motion to build a good thick lather.
Lather the face once, then when the lather is nice and thick you warm the finger tips some hot water (quickly) and really work the lather into the beard using finger tips.
You then squeeze out excess water from your face cloth and apply it to the lathered face like a hot towel.
Remove all the soap using this cloth. The 2nd time you build the shave lather you really want to work the lather into the grain any direction, and holding the bristles firmly as described above to almost scrub against the grain working the lather into the face, continuing with lighter strokes letting the bristles relax and go wherever they like.
The longer spent doing this the better, I take my time to do this prep and it has made all the deference to my shave. I thought it was bunkum but it REALLY works for me.
I had said that I had only been holding the handle of the brush to work in the lather and he said he was not surprised I was there for a shaving lesson!
:beer2:
