Thread: Lather-eating boar brush

I recently bought a big boar brush (omega 48) but i have a few scores to settle with it . You see, the thing likes to eat my lather straight out of my shaving mug. I leave it and my soap (D.R.Harris) soaking during my shower. When I lather up in my cup, it makes lather all nice and amiable, but when I come back from stropping my razor, approximately a half of my lather has mysteriously disappeared and the brush is looking too smug for its own good. It only gets worse with time. Adding water and whipping lather like a man possessed further breaks the lather down until I have to dip to the soap again.

Do I have a possessed vampire brush or what is going on? I have no trouble keeping the lather with my synthetic body shop brush.

My boar brush needed a dozen lathers and a dip in near boiling water to break it in and make good lather. I recommend some elbow grease.

It's true. It is a well documented fact that boar brushes are much more stubborn than their badger counterparts and take much much longer to break in. That being said, once they are broken in, I love a good boar brush

Try hair conditioner. At one time I used to shave with conditioner and my boar brush is softer and makes a great lather now.

So this is a tendency of those boars not yet broken in?

I have used it maybe 10-20 times and I can see the hairs have already split at the ends (maybe, 6-8mm), but how far they usually split on a well broken boar?

Could it be that you're using too much water when you make the lather? I know that if I personally have a lather that vanishes very quickly, the first thing I'd do would be rinse it all away and try it again with almost no water, adding more until I reach the perfect lather point. The fact that adding water and whipping again makes it vanish even worse could suggest that there's too much water to begin with, and that the extra water is just making it worse.
My money's on too much water, personally, but I have no experience with boar brushes, preferring a nice badger brush myself, so it could still be the brush, I just have nothing to back that up with, whereas I DO have a bit of experience with the vanishing lather as a result of too much water.

I have a badger brush that my wife gave me years ago and I find the hairs too limp. I like the boar bristle better. I also add about 5 drops of glycerin after I work up the initial lather in my lather cup. That seems to stabilize the foam.

Hmmmm....well, for one thing, you should probably not leave the brush in the bowl. Water from your knot is very likely leaking down into the lather and over-wetting it.

For another, you are making a bit of a mistake if you think adding water and whipping more will fix disappearing lather...Boar brushes hold almost EXACTLY the right amount of water for building soap lather right after the soak. Work the brush into the soap well to make sure that all the water is released when building lather, then GO TO YOUR FACE. Your face is where lather belongs, not the bowl...Work the brush on your face a while, and you should have scads of rich, creamy lather. If you don't work that water from the knot into the lather, it'll come back and start to eat away the lather you've already built.

Thanks for the tips guys,

I shook the brush more vigorously and lathered rubbing the brush into the cup hard, and the lather did indeed improve. I guess my brush was too moist then.

I know the lather in the cup isn't important as such, but it does sucketh when I'm about to do a second pass and there's no real lather left. I only added water because whisping more did not restore the lather.

Unfortunately I have no clue where to purchase glyserin here. Might be difficult to obtain locally, but thanks for the tip.

I haven't tried badger brushes yet, but I'm quite fond of my synthetic brush which is softer and smaller than my boar. I might have to stock up on those.

I think I have to try starting with dryer brush and then adding water. Maybe then the water won't seep from the knot so much. I dunno why, but placing the brush anywhere else than the cup clashes with me.

Anyways, thanks for the tips again

Originally Posted by ursus

Unfortunately I have no clue where to purchase glyserin here. Might be difficult to obtain locally, but thanks for the tip.

I bought my glycerin in the pharmacy section of one of the big regional grocery stores. I found it on the first aide aisle. You might even try Walmart or one of the chain pharmacies. I did ask one of the pharmacy techs which aisle it would be on and she really didn't know where it was but she took me over to the first aide aisle and she just happened to stop in the right spot and saw it on the top shelf. (Your results may vary )