Thread: Trouble with Lather

I like to build my lather directly on the face, and while I have yet to master the whipped cream look, I usually have a good lather. I recently went on a trip overseas and no matter what I did I could not get a good lather. I altered the amount of water I used and soap, but it always seemed to dry out way to fast. When I came back home my lather problems were gone. Does anyone know what could have had caused such a drastic change?

Water hardness, could play a large factor in this, as well as temperature.

Hello, LERigney:

I concur with BigIan's thoughts, especially since the problem didn't seem to be with your lather-making skills.

I am glad things are back to normal. That lather, as you well know, is extremely important.

Regards,
Obie

Yes, that's a symptom of hard water.

Hi,

Yup sounds like it.

Standard soap solutions (one of which was the unfortunately named 'Wanklyns') were used in a bygone era to test water hardness.

The end point of the test was reached when a further addition of the soap solution lead to a foam on shaking. i.e. no foam was produced unless 'free' soap was present.

The upshot of this is the harder the water, the more soap you need to use for a given lather, or with a fixed amount of soap, the lather will be less good.

Many apologies for boring you all sh*tless

Have fun !

regards

Russ

As a face latherer myself something ive noticed recently is the pressure i apply to my face with the brush makes a big difference in getting the lather just right.

To begin with i use light pressure while massaging the soap around my face, the brush letting out some of the held water. As i progress i add more pressure until im holding the knot and the bristles spreading, releasing majority of the water to continue the lather build.

If you force the brush to spread completely in the beginning it will release most of the water too quickly and makes the lather build more difficult.

Granted its a small tip, use less pressure when you start and see if it makes a difference for you as its helped me.

This is just my experience, I use a semogue 2015hd for what its worth. If you have a bore brush all bets are off, i have no experience there.

Cheers

When I was a DE shaver face lathering worked for me but once I switched to the straight razor I found the bowl gives me far better lather. YMMV. I've read posts suggesting someone with suspected hard water problems try bottled water to see if that makes a difference in the lather. At least you'll know if it is your tap water or not.

Another +1 for hard water.

One way to reduce the effect is to make sure the water is really hot. We have pretty hard water in London and having the water really hot helps make the lather better.

I feel like whipping up lather in a bowl is just a waste of time. All I do is cake some soap on my brush (I like boar brushes) and I then lather up on my face adding drops of water to the brush if I need moisture.

simple, easy, works great.

Hard water is the pits with all soaps; it produces less lather, and leaves a nasty soap scum and residue which is hard to clean up and builds up a rather thick, ugly layer of grunge if it is not cleaned up after each use. The real soaps, like Tabac (I LOVE the clean, simple fragrance) leave this residue in your sink, your brush, and everywhere they come in contact with. I have pretty much gone to all glycerine soaps (I prefer and recommend Mamma Bears), though I still get out the Tabac occasionally.