Lather problems

Ok, I've been at this for about a week, and I've had a few difficulties with sharpness and stropping, but my main source of frustration at this point is making lather. For a while I thought that I was just adding too little water, but I've varied that enough and feel like I've improved enough technique-wise that I don't think it's anything related to that.

The trouble I'm having is that the lather looks fairly good when my brush is loaded with it, but it always seems to go on thin, i.e. it's never looks like this big luxurious carpet, for lack of a better comparison, but I can always see my skin through it. This morning I tried putting it on my hand so that I could see how it looks there, and compare it to the pictures of good lather on the wiki, and it was the same thing; even though the lather looked good in the bowl, on my hand it looked thin and I could easily see the skin through it, no matter how much I whipped it or how many passes I made.

So I'm wondering if it is either my brush or the cream I chose to get started. The brush is a silvertip badger hair from Parker safety razors that I bought on Amazon- I probably should have gone with a more basic brush from one of the more standard companies, but I saw this silvertip that was so much cheaper than all the others and went for it. The brush may be perfectly fine, I just don't have anything to compare it to. The cream is the C.O. Bigelow that is made by Proraso.

Anyone have any thoughts on either of those components, or any other tips?

how much cream are you useing? i use oh a good inch of Proraso and a no water in the cup to start just a wet brush . soak the brush and give it a good shake and start mixing slowly add water a few drops at a time, i stick my fingers under the water and then hold them over the cup. mix a good 20 secs. before adding more. Proraso was my frist cream and has allways worked well for me. my frist brush was a 15 dollar cheap badger so i dont think its your brush. more likely too much water and too little product
hope this helps

Yea, the brush doesn't make a difference at all, except to save your wrist and look good when you're shaving in the morning. Seriously, you should be able to make excellent lather with a toothbrush.

I think you need to cut back on the amount of water than you're using compared to the amount of cream you have, or else add a lot more cream for the amount of water you're using. I use enough cream to fit on three fingertips (like a dollop with about the circumference of a half dollar), and then the only water I use is whatever's in the bowl after I wet it and then pour out the water and whatever's left on the brush after I wet it and then shake it out.

Another good test for water usage -- your lather should look as white and opaque as sour cream. If it just looks foamy or bubbly, then there's too much water in it!

Sorry to hear about your experience, you should not have problems lathering with Proraso. A note of caution: brushes undergo a breaking period and they do not perform well until they are properly broken in. I would also give a visit to the SRP wiki, here: Category:Straight Razor Shaving - Straight Razor Place Wiki

If you think you added too much water, one thing to try is using a bit less water, remember that you can always add more water. The point is to find the correct water:soap ratio. This is what is called the point of the soap. It is at this point that your lather is at its best. To wet and it would vanish into thin air and if too dry, it may feel like concrete. If you are using a bowl, controlling the water should be easy: just use about an almond size of the cream, load your brush and whip, add water progressively (no more than 5at the time) until you find the peak. How do you know that you are there? Use the 1" test: take bit of the lather and place it in your thumb, let your index finger touch it, separate them slowly; when you can separate them more than 1" you are ok. Both excessively wet or dry lather can have a similar appearance though. If you go too far past this point, the lather would vanish into thin air. You can also get a better consistency by adjusting the whipping speed. One thing is for sure, it is better to use a bit past the point lather than dry lather. You also may want to work the lather on your face as well so that it serves one of its intended purposes, prepping your beard but as you said, it should look similar to whipped cream. Also, you may want to check the videos that mantic, a member here, has made about making lather; his videos are excellent.

YouTube - How To Build And Apply Traditional Shaving Lather

If you have any questions, drop me a PM for tips.


Al raz.

The issue is likely the amount of cream you are using. Whatever you've been using, double it. Starting with a dry-ish brush, just add a little bit of water at a time until your lather starts to look like the consistency of yogurt. Too little product is the most common issue with lathering IME :)

Are you lathering 30 seconds on the hand and 30 seconds on the face? It does take an adjustment to know when to add water, but its not much in the lathering process.

Good Luck,

Pabster

One of the BIG problem I had when starting out was just as yours is now, lather would not hold up. And all the wrist work in the world didn't seem to help, but I bought a test kit at the local hardware store and found that the well water I was using was very, very hard, this is a great detriment to good lather. I also noticed that the hardness was not the same day to day, some day's imposible to work with and some day's difficult but workable. I started buy distilled water at the local Wally-World[Wal-Mart] and heating about 8oz in the microwave, puting it in a thermos and useing it to make lather, and with Proraso products I found NO problem from then on in getting all the best results in my lathering proccess. Hope this helps, by the way, I found the test kit in the water softening section of the hardware store.

Well, that's my tupense, here's hopeing all your shave's are BBS!!

tinkersd of SRP!