Thread: Help an old guy out with lathering

My lather routine.

Scuttle in the sink, reservoir and bowl with very hot water, not too hot, as too much heat will break down the lather and cause it to be runny IME.

Good splash of same hot water on the soap puck if it's a hard soap.

I only dip the tips of the brush in the water. The wet tips allow some great grip while loading the brush, and primarily, you want the brush filled with lather, not water, so working the brush in the scuttle will work the soap back up into the brush and moisten it nicely with lather, not water - great tip from Sharptonn. Also maintains more backbone on the brush, which is nice, and depending on how deeply you dip the tips of the brush, I've found you can control the amount of backbone you want - YMMV.

Solid loading of the brush. I always load to fill the scuttle for 3 or 4 passes. This is where I've always run into errors with hard soaps - not loading enough - Le Pere Lucien is an example of a soap that you must load extensively to get a decent lather. Various soaps will produce various grades of lather.

I start with just a small surface layer of water in the scuttle, and add water until the soap slowly blossoms / blooms. You can always add more, you can't take away, and some soaps are very thirsty, while others don't need much at all, for me an example of this would be Penhaligon's, doesn't need much.

Creams for the most part are a no brainer - with the exception of making sure you don't use too much. Too much cream, and your brush turns into a pasty ice cream cone - not good and is a horrible experience to lather with.

At this point, working the lather in the very warm scuttle and letting it sit for a minute or two while I strop up the razor. I find this allows the soap to blossom more, as well as "melt" down some more, so I'll rinse my face, and work the lather again - then apply.

After the second pass, I always do a light face rinse, and lather for the third and final time for the final pass - sometimes if I'm particularily "Zen'ing" out in the shave, I'll do a 4th pass just because I want to.

But aside from quality soap, and there are so many fine soaps to try - the brush IMO, is a foundation to the shave, can make or break it in my opinion, and finding the right brush is a fun journey.