Thread: Trouble building lather

Try face lathering, it works!

Hi All - I'm pretty new to this, and I have been using the soap that came with the Van Der Hagen starter bowl and brush from Amazon that I got for $10. I never read about lathering techniques, so I've had the soap in the bowl and mostly lather on my face and it seems to give me a nice lather.

I just bought a Mama Bear soap and tried it yesterday, but it didn't seem to lather the same. The difference here is that I get some lather in the brush then use the bowl to whip it. Does that reduce the lather I get? With the VDH, I lather while the soap is in the bowl itself. The Mama Bear doesn't seem to lather as abundantly as the VDH on my face.

I like the smell of this Mama Bear soap, so I'd like to keep it and make it work, plus it's a 5oz puck and should last me a LONG time. Any advice?

I would say, use the method you're accustomed to, at least for now. You are probably getting a lot of soap by lathering in the soap container. So, once it's on your face, dip the brush in a little water and keep swirling & painting on your face. MB is a good lathering soap, so you'll get there. Try practicing when you're not actually shaving, so that you aren't under pressure and can experiment. Good luck!

Originally Posted by deepweeds

I would say, use the method you're accustomed to, at least for now. You are probably getting a lot of soap by lathering in the soap container. So, once it's on your face, dip the brush in a little water and keep swirling & painting on your face. MB is a good lathering soap, so you'll get there. Try practicing when you're not actually shaving, so that you aren't under pressure and can experiment. Good luck!

I never thought about that. I'll practice lathering later tonight. I'll definitely feel less pressure about shaving and getting out in case someone else needs the bathroom.

I may not be a pro at much but i'm pretty confident in my soap lathering skills. It's actually my favorite part of this whole hobby. Heres my 2 cents;

There are lots of ways to lather and everyone prefers what works for them to get (and heres the kicker) what type of lather they think is "good". Some people like 'yogurt' and some people like 'whipped cream' and theres a million different perceptions of slickness between those. Heres what I would suggest for someone that really hasn't gotten a consistent lather:

1. Hot water rinse your soap
2. Warm water wet your brush (hot water will curl the tips of the hair, also no reason to soak a brush)
3. Hold brush facing down and let it drain, then one good drop/flick to clear some more water out of it
4. Light pressure just the tips load the brush until theres a thick lather (not watery fluff) layer starting to build up
5. wet your left hand and start lathering a Z pattern in your hand lightly.
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6. When you get some build up between your thumb and forefinger scoop it up and put it back on your arm.
7. dip your hand back in the water (we're adding more water here, not washing) and keep going with the brush
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8. You can keep going with more and more water until it turns into a foam and becomes worthless. then you know what too much looks like.

Repeat #6 & 7 adding piles of lather down your arm at different levels of wetness. maybe 4-5 spoonfuls basically. Now you have a spectrum to see what you like. You should try to shave a section with each. Is it slick enough? is it drying out too fast and flaking? does it load up the razor too quickly? is it washing off the blade easily or do you have to risk cutting your thumb wiping it? And do any of those matter to you. I do this with each of my soaps and only very recently with creams to see how much water (hand dips) i need in order to consistently get what i want - and i write it on the # bottom of the container



Some observations that might help someone:
I definitely greatly underestimated the amount of water you can use and also grossly over estimated how much soap you actually need on the brush. I once dropped my brush into the full sink after loading the brush. Exclaimed a 4 letter expletive and decided to keep going and see if it would even work. It did, and made a great lather anyway. Tons of water, big foam, then smoothed out. Also listened to a story this past weekend about a high-end soap sample that came on a piece of waxed paper. The soap was merely painted onto the paper once unfolded and you couldn't even really see it. The instructions stated it should make multiple lathers and that you only really needed a little bit of soap on the brush. Sure enough, we all use way too much soap. But at the price of good soap refills, who's really complaining.

Thanks. I'll give that a shot. I don't think I wait till there's a lather on the brush bfore heading to the bowl. I might give that a shot and see if I'm not getting enough soap on the brush. Maybe wet the soap before I lay the brush on it.

based on my findings i'm going to say you're not using enough water or you're not "whipping" it long enough. Take a video and post it up! thats the sure way

I used to use WAY too much water. Try shaking your brush out after soaking and load your brush fairly dry. Whip up your lather in a bowl adding a few drops of water every minute or so whipping fairly quickly. It makes a huge difference starting kinda dry and slowly hydrating. You can see and feel a texture difference when the lather hits the sweet spot. I have extremely hard water, and it takes a minute or two of whipping and adding water a couple drops at a time before I get there, but you can feel it. Try adding a drop of cream to your mix and play with a few drops of glycerine (I got a small bottle from walmart near the rubbing alcohol for a couple dollars a year ago and it's still 3/4 full). I highly suggest whipping up lather just for practice! If I get a new cream or soap, I'll play with a couple test lathers just for the fun of it. Aside from a very minimal waste of product, what harm is it? You'll learn very quickly once you get that first really good lather what works. Don't be afraid of a little trial and error. Playing with glycerine can be very rewarding as well.

Guess what! I got a really nice lather last night. I used a little less water on the soap and just whipped it in the bowl longer and faster than I used to. Previously, I had too much water and just wasn't whipping it fast enough to get a lather going. That's good to know. That glycerin bases soaps need a lot more whipping than just the regular shave gels I was accustomed to. I have hard water in my house too, so I did use very little in the beginning, then added a couple of drops as I went along. It came out beautifully creamy and stayed on my face much longer. It didn't break down before I got to that part of my face.

Awesome advice, guys. I am enjoying the whole shaving process even more now.

"That glycerin bases soaps need a lot more whipping than just the regular shave gels I was accustomed to." Really? I thought it was the opposite!

Try face lathering, it works