Thread: Bowls

I don't have a picture, but I use both an Old Spice mug with ridges inside and a ceramic bowl that has a slightly rough surface and ridges. The bowl is awesome--just a couple of swirls and lather poofs up like magic!


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When I bowl lather (not often) I use a Captain Choice Bowl. Has the ridges to help make lather and the lip is curved in at the top to help keep the lather in the bowl while building lather. I read once of a guy using those little bowls that you get salsa in at Mexican restaurants. He had cut ridges in it and said it worked well.

So the cup I have is about 6 inches deep. Deep enough that I can only hold my brush by the very end and my fingers are still inside the cup; a royal pain for building a decent lather. I'm looking at an aluminum bowl. Just didn't know if the metal would have any effect on the soaps or creams I ordered to try.

Small rice bowls work perfectly, but if you want to store, long term aluminum screw on cap containers or pyrex clear glass with plastic airtight lids work, just wait for the puck to dry and pop in the storage container, mark it with a stick-on label.

Typically, I will shave with a soap or cream, for a week or two, or months, then switch to something new.

I also have a double boiler type scuttle, but just use it to keep my brush warm and face lather.

I have bought beautiful, ceramic rice bowls at thrift stores and Dollar stores, and have seen very nice, pricy ones at places like Pottery Barn and Sur Le Table.

Awesome. Thank you all for the tips!!

Here are the bowls I use. Pict them up at flea markets. Works great!

I dont think the matherial mather much in performance. I thought ceramic once would keep the lather warm a bit loger, but they dont. I just like the feeling of them.

Howewer, a bowl that is not completely smooth inside might help you build the lather more quickly.

I'm more of a face-lather guy, but since I recently switched to hard soaps, I needed a bowl to soak and hold the puck while I loaded the brush. I started with a regular coffee mug, but it was a bit small for the puck I had (Mitchell's Wool Fat). I did manage to jam the puck in anyway, although it did cause it to crack a bit along the edge. The next problem was that the coffee mug did not offer any "traction" on the puck, so when I tried to load my brush, the soap puck would just spin in circles, making the loading process quite inefficient.

So my solution to this was to get a bowl with some sort of spikes in the bottom to hold the puck in place. My dad likes to make wood bowls on his lathe as a hobby, so I mentioned it to him, and he turned this bowl in a couple of hours. The he drove some screws through the bottom and ground the thread off the tip of the screw, so that it would stick out into the bowl. Made the whole thing waterproof with epoxy in the bottom, and a few coats of varnish, and voila, my new soap bowl!

Here are a few pictures, with a well used MWF puck already installed. I forgot to take pictures without the puck to show the screws which hold the puck in place. It works great though, the puck doesn't move at all while I load the brush, and I've been using it for a few weeks. Great success!

(Edit... First time uploading pictures, not sure if this will work...)

Great looking bowl, your dad did an awesome job. And great idea on the screws. I'd think they will be there fo a good long time without a problem

Any Thrift store is a haven for shaving bowls. I found an extra large pottery mug made for soup for 50 cents when I first started wet shaving. It's a great shaving bowl. Probably for French Onion soup to be specific.

For me it's a scuttle, I like a warm lather.