Thread: Lathering

Coming from one who is hopeless with bowl-lathering, I found the best solution for me was scuttle-lathering.

I use a traditional vintage shaving-scuttle similar to this one:



Steps:

1. Put 1/2 teaspoon of soft soap or cream into top of the scuttle.
2. Fill scuttle with hot water. Stick brush in spout and leave to soak for 30sec.
3. Take brush out of spout and immediately apply to the soap-bowl in the top of the scuttle.
4. Begin lathering. Don't worry about the holes. Just lather.
5. Excess water drains back into the scuttle's lower chamber as you lather. Lather builds in upper bowl. Once sufficient lather is produced...apply to face and continue lathering as necessary.

6 (optional) If lather in scuttle is dry, pick up the scuttle and tip it back towards the handle. The water in the scuttle will come up through the holes in the soap-bowl. Continue lathering until desired consistency is reached. Tip scuttle back to horizontal position to get rid of the excess water.

Doing this, I've managed to get lather in a minute (literally). It's very effective.

Similar steps also work if you lather on the puck, and put a shaving-soap puck into the top of the scuttle.

It is just trial and error. Watch Mantic59 videos on youtube, they're good and will give you the basic tools you need. The best thing you can do is pick a well known, well respected soap or cream with proven results, No designer stuff. Some are finicky. Castle Forbes, Trufitt and Hill, or MWF, Tabac to name a few. Get those down, learn how they work with your gear, your water, your technique. You'll be building loads of lather in no time...

Ryan, fair question and most welcome. If you watch Mantic's video (again), you would realize that a 3 second load is effective, especially, if you consider that he is not using the best lathering products available. After he applies lather to his face, there is still a lot of lather on his brush. The issue of how much you use is important because if the lather is to have the proper consistency, the ratio between the 3, yes, 3, components of the lather has to be maintained. I am going to attempt a more detailed explanation of this for the interested audience, perhaps this will be useful .

Wait a minute! I thought there were only 2 ingredients (water and soap) in lather? Nope, air is an integral part of the lather that is responsible for most of the cushion.

Lather is, therefore, a ternary system that consists of air, water and soap in that order. Lather has two phases (those that can be "separated"), in this case the air and the "aqueous" phase. The soap "only" provides the means for these 2 to be "together" for some period of time. The soaps is known as a "surface active agent" or surfactant. Good so far? It will get easier.

People that study these systems have determined that in these systems, the surfactant (soap/cream) has to be applied in concentrations between 10 and 15% and this is true for a lot of ternary systems. What this means is that if the concentration of surfactant is doubled, there has to be a concomitant increase the other 2 components until the correct ratio is satisfied.

Here is how this works:

Lathering is a fairly unstable system and its formation is non-spontaneous, which means, that it does not happen by itself. Why? because the natural tendency of the system is to minimize the surface between the phases (phase separation). The best example to illustrate this is vinaigrette. When shaken, it becomes sort of milky and after awhile, the vinegar and the oil (the phases) separate, at least, for the most part. Lather is more complicated than vinaigrette because the aqueous phase may also be a disperse (one in which there are more than one phase) system in itself. The idea of creating lather is to increase the surface between the air and the aqueous phases and this requires energy, your energy; just like shaking in the vinaigrette example.

How well air can be "mixed" with the aqueous phase (how small you can make your air bubbles trapped, which determines the thickness of the lather and in turn, the cushion) and how well the lather can stay formed is directly related to the soap/cream you are using. Needless to say that most products work for the most part. Clearly, the amount of soap does not have a major effect on these variables in general, it only affects the amount of lather that you can produce.

The brush, in conjunction with your arm, act as a motor that "mixes" the two phases, rather disperses the air into the aqueous phase. This is very important because it is this process that reduces the size of the little air bubbles as the lather forms and helps the two phases to reach the optimal ratio. Notice that if too much soap is added, the brush becomes ineffective. This will also be affected by the size and geometry of the bowl used, if one is used, of course. When lather is formed directly on the face, this becomes secondary as the surface of the face is often larger. This can be tested by using a large amount (like a spoon full) of soap or cream. It does not matter how much you swirl or how vigorously, you would just simply not get the lather thick or hydrated enough. If you used a bucket and a different size of brush (like the size of a broom) then you can add enough water and make your lather thick again. Please do not try this at home! , it will be exhausting too. Not every molecule in the soap/cream contributes to lather formation and this is determined by the formulation of the product, some are more "concentrated" than others.

We covered the soap/cream, the air and how to disperse one phase into the other) but how about the water? The water is very important because the aqueous phase determines a great deal of the glide; it also contributes to beard preparation, especially if the lather is made directly on the face, and the skin conditioning! If the water content of the lather is low, the effectiveness of the lather will be diminished. Also, when a soap/cream is formulated, the manufacturer expects that the user finds the optimal concentration of water for performance; otherwise, some of the chemicals in the product will be at a much higher concentration that they were originally intended to be. This can also have a adverse effect on on the skin and obviously, in the shave.

This is particularly important because most soaps, and particularly glycerin-based soaps, produce very thick lather without being well hydrated: the lather looks "good" without being so. It is very important that the user looks carefully at the lather and evaluate its quality. How? The lather should be shiny on the face, not dull; and you should be able to stretch it, at least 1" without breakage, see the picture. Notice that the hydration of the lather doe not come with a significant change in volume. This gives the user the impression of it being ready before it really is. The lather should not look or feel like yogurt or too airy either, the latter is fairly easy to identify. The density of the lather comes from the air inside so lather that is too compact will not provide the ideal cushion, think foam rubber here. As mentioned earlier, dry lather does not provide enough slip. Spending a similar amount of time loading the brush as building lather is typically not a good sign, building the lather should take considerably longer in relative terms. Good lather making should reduce the number of passes needed to obtain a close shave and improve beard preparation and skin conditioning.



Other variables that intervene in lather formation are temperature and the quality of the water. In terms of temperature, usually, the hotter the water the "better" and easier it is to form lather. I am not going to go into the details here. If the water is hard, the composition of the aqueous phase changes and this shifts the normal ratios of the components. In these cases, the amount of soap should be changed accordingly to compensate for this. Water softeners based on ion exchange are not very effective because soaps are insoluble in high concentrations of salts, regardless of which salt. This will affect the hydration, and depending on the formulation of the soap/cream, could also affect its density. This is only a problem in extreme cases.

Happy lathering to all .

Al raz.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

3 seconds???

I know I'm questioning the "lather guy", but 3 seconds isn't going to load the brush enough for a multiple pass shave. I don't think I've even seen a lathering video where anyone loads for less than 20, and these guys are considered "pros"....

Just for the record - I'm just asking, as I do not have any lathering issues of my own...

I use cream, a Badger Brush from TAOS and a Cereal Bowl, with a pebbled finish.
I fill the bowl with hot water. Place brush in the hot water. take it out and shake 4 times gently. Empty bowl. Dab brush into cream. Swirl brush in bowl vigorously, using mainly the tips of the hair, don't mash your brush. If after 5 seconds the lather is runny, you have too much water, drain it out and continue beating. If it is just smearing around, you don't have enough water, add 2-3 drops. Keep beating.
For me a good lather is not a stiff lather, that dries too fast. It should be like a Chantilly (French Culinary term, probably of no help to anyione reading this), which is lightly whipped cream.
That's my method, hope it helps.

When using soap, such as MWF, I usually load my brush anywhere from 5-10 seconds.

I know, its wasteful, but it provides me with so much more lather. Ahhhhhh.

I have an issue lathering. I apply it to my face and start shaving. By the time I get to the other half of my face the lather seems sticky as I shave.

I'm more curious if its my soap (cheap?) or if I'm just making it bad. It does seem to be a bit thin on my face.

I think you just need to experiment. Differences in water quality and soap make it hard to give a one size fits all method of lathering.

Lather going dry? Needs more water.
Too runny? Use less water.
Not building enough? Load up more soap.
etc.

Yes, YMMV. It's funny, certain products work well for certain people, water plays a big role....3 second build on soap seems kinda chinsy to me...Surely, a few seconds more won't hurt anything? It may be adequate for some, but not enough for others...

I have a water softner, and some soaps, and creams other's rave about, are only so so in my world....and I've been building lather for more years than I care to mention...

I have been having a few rough shaves recently and, after reading through this thread, i have realised i am using too mush soap and not enough water. I followed the advice of 3 seconds of brush loading and face lathered. The result, absolutely superb lather and enough for 3 passes. I was throwing more soap at the problem instead of using alot less and more warm water.

Originally Posted by Lenny

I followed the advice of 3 seconds of brush loading and face lathered. The result, absolutely superb lather and enough for 3 passes.

But could you recreate the same amount and quality by bowl lathering?

I still say 3 seconds isn't enough...