Thread: Loading On A Puck Of Soap, Do You Pump The Brush ? Poll

In Leisure Guy's book on 'gourmet shaving' he recommends 'pumping the brush' when generating lather on a puck of soap. I didn't feel comfortable doing that with my badgers but I do use a bit of pressure to load the brush.

So I recently got a couple of Thaters, love 'em BTW, and their instruction warn against lathering with pressure , on the puck , or on the face. Light pressure swirls is what they recommended. So what is the scoop in your experience. Any pumpers out there ? Any warnings "not to do what I have done." ( played to the tune of House Of The Rising Sun) Eric Burdon version. Google it if you're not familiar. Good stuff.

I pump, swirl, do the Can Can and pretty much any other move you can think of
Loading the brush is the goal, and loaded it gets!

Getting technical here Jimmy

From a puck of soap loading the brush, to transfer either to the face or to a bowl NO I do not find any reason to use the pumping action..

In General: I use swirling action to load or mix the product(s) and only use a pumping action to force air and water through the mixture when building up the lather in a Bowl or Scuttle...

I'm a swirler too. Drop of water, then swirl on the soap. Drop of water, then swirl the soap.......and so on. The goal being as stated which is to load the brush with soap. Then a touch more water for me and on to the face lathering, most of the time anyway.

Have fun.

I'm a big swirler-clockwise, counter clock wise, a periodic pump is sometimes required. Gosh, not only is there is so much to learn, but my straight razor vocabulary is forever growing.

I wet the puck of soap, then I just swirl the brush clockwise.

I dont ever really pump the brush when I am loading it on the soap cake. but I do pump the brush a number of times while making my lather in a bowl or scuttle.

I pump on brushes with shorter hair (not on the soap, but in the bowl).
I've recently bought a longer horse hair brush, and pumping didn't do much.
In either case, I swirl with pressure.

Depends on the soap. With most I just twirl and spin. With a few I use a little more pressure but try and use as little as possible. I never pump.

I typically swirl to load and lather, with an occasional and gentle pump.