Thread: Share Your Lathering Methods/Secrets + Poll

My habits depend on what I'm using. For creams, I prefer to bowl lather. For soaps, I do some whipping on top of the soap itself till I get mild lather, then I take it to the face. Either way, I prefer warm/hot water. For some, HOT water seems to ruin the lather. And I'm just not a big fan of cold.

I'm a one brush man, and it's a Thater. Silvertip? I don't remember what they call it.

hmmmm I never had a problem making lather. I always , Always soak my brush in hot water and if using a puck I put some water in the dish and dump out the extra leaving a little puddle. When done with my other duties I shake the brush till the water stops landing on the mirror and start whipping it in the puck till I see some lather in there. then to the face and that pretty much covers it.

With the cream I put the bowl in the sink with the brush in it and soak both. Dump the water out of the bowl but leave lots of drops behind. Scoop some cream up with my finger and flick it on the bottom of the bowl. I have this DD brush that has a long knot of boar ( but may be horse, cause it is soft) it doesn't seem like it is ever going to do anything when all of a sudden here it comes. After 2 minutes I have enough lather to paint the bathroom with. I can feel when it needs another dip in the water because it starts to drag in the bowl.
Now I have only been doing this for 5 months or so and the cream about 12 days. But it works every time. The puck came with a Very cheap starter set and the cream is Al's shaving. Which by the way has a great little vid on how to best make lather with their cream.
Al's Shaving Cream AKA Bomb Lathering Demo - YouTube It does like he says.

1 puck and 1 kind of cream and no problems making lather. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I've never had an issue with making lather either except for a very few garbage soaps. I just put the brush under hot water until it's well soaked and then shake some of the water out and start twirling. Sometimes I need to add a bit more water and sometimes less. Sometimes I need to use a little more pressure as I load the brush. I just change the routine to fit the particular soap.

Since I first started shaving around 1975, I've always been a wet shaver. My frugal (read: cheap-skate) father used a brush and mug, but instead of tossing the left over soap from the shower, he just tossed the pieces and scraps into his shave mug.

I decided I wanted the real stuff and found Colgate and Williams Mug Soap. My first attempts with those were dreadful. I'm sure I tried several canned lathers, and I remember Col Conks which I think I remember favoring. I've also since tried G. Trumpers, Evelyn-Crabtree, and some Caswell-Massey shave soaps, creams, lotions, etc.

Eventually I went back to the Williams and Colgate soaps because I found that I had a soft spot for the nostalgic, and this was several years before even imagining the use of a straight razor.

After many years, and much trial, error and frustration, I finally mastered the use of Williams soap. I think by that time, maybe, Colgate was no longer available. To this day, Williams is still my favorite and preferred soap for shaving.

I'm far from experienced. The thing I notice matters the most for me is the brush. With the right one, everything is fine. I have one brush that's a PITA to get anything at all, and one that's great and works with anything. In general, my bigger, looser brushes (including a $3 horse brush from bestshave.net) explode foam. My favorite, trim, tight travel brush doesn't work at all, in spite of its cushy feel.

those few points stuck out when i read that post also , although i was getting good lather (to me) i noticed that i prob was using to much pressure and never the tip , i would work the whole brush and hence my brush would be full of lather ... my last to shaves ive tried to just use the tip of the brush ..... im kinda a lazy latherer , i try to get what im looking for as fast as possiable and whip it on , i think ill take my time more and start paying attention to the way i get my lather from now on ...

I’m just a few shaves in and I’ve been using the cheap VDH set to start with, but one thing I noticed is that when I filter the hard water that comes out of my tap, it makes a huge difference of how much lather I get. Tap gives me soapy water, and filtered makes it so thick I could spackle my walls with it!

I get handfulls of lather whenever I use a scuttle, but I never use one. I like the simpleness of face lathering. Lynn once said to add the water from the spigot, to the back end of the brush and let it run down the brush hairs toward the tips. And if you haven't pushed down too hard, should neatly contain all the lather potential. From here you can flick the water out of the brush without messing up the lather on the tips if you feel you overloaded. My trick lately, is to begin the lathering on my neck with my chin up where its a broad open space. Does that make sense?

I never thought about the pressure, but I have always been fairly gentle with it and had good luck. I soak my brush in warm water and rub a few drops on my puck before I shower, and with a quick shake after dumping the water out, seems to work decent.

I'm glad I put up the poll, it is very interesting. Obviously the hot water shavers are outnumbering the cold by miles. I'm surprised that the bowl latherers out number the face latherers so far. Also that the puck outnumbers cream but cream seems to be catching up. I'm a cold bowl puck latherer BTW.