Thread: Am I not making lather right?

I have really been on a Proraso kick since the weather has been sooo hot here in Ohio. I found that proraso really holds alot of water and I don't shake the brush very much before I load it with soap. I hold the soap container over the bowl and let the excess water and soap from the brush fall into the bowl, if that makes sense, then I whip the lather in the bowl for 20-30 seconds and it gets "sticky" on the brush. At this point I add more water by drizzling hot water onto the brush and then swirling and pumping in the bowl and the lather just seems to explode all at once. I usually can tell when I have enough water when the cream goes from milky to having a shiny sheen to it. Hope this helps and it does seem to work good for me.

Before extra water


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So those are what I have been ending up with.

And here is after taking JoeSomebody's advice and adding more water after I whip it.
After Extra Water:


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I would say I probably added about 1.5-2 teaspoons more water after I did my initial lather to make that.

And yes, I can flip the bowl over and it stays. I didn't try it until after I added the water but it definitely stayed for 4 or 5 seconds.

Looks fine to me. Plus it sounds like it's working out fine for you as far as shaving goes. Usually when someone posts about their lather they are complaining about it being too dry (flaking off) or too wet (lather is thin and runny) or they don't use enough product (lather literally disappears off their face). If this isn't an issue then it sounds like you're okay.

Yeah your lather looks alright to me. I guess the best test is how your shaves have been.

Looks pretty nice to me too, so nice I could eat it :-)

I'm pretty much hooked on Überlather these days; using Body Shop Maca Root cream, Evelyn and Crabtree Nomad soap and gycerin. I did an 'all Proraso' shave the other day but I prefer the Überlather I make, (plus it's too cold here at the moment for Proraso!) the glide and cushion is really nice. This morning I used too much water (wasn't really concentrating, first day back at work after hols) and it was too watery, it felt so too :-(

Actually, I think Ryan has actually said it all in a nutshell, in my limited experiance anyway. All my bodgy attempts I reckon I could trace to one of the errors he states; thanks Ryan!

Awesome. Thanks for the confirmation everybody. I feel better now. I guess I just assumed it would take me a while to get it right and when it looked good right off the bat I got concerned.

As far as how my shaves go, it seems pretty good to me but I'm still so new that I'm sure my technique is to blame before my lather. I haven't cut myself yet. Just a little bit of razor burn and bumps but that's getting better every shave.

I did try a pre-lather coating of astroglide and I really do think that helped a lot this time.

Try to lighten up on your pressure, that is probably what is causing the bumps/burn. Atleast that's what was causing mine.
Sounds like you're making good progress.

Looks pretty good, but how does it taste?

I was unaware of the "taste test" as a qualifier of lathers. I think I'm going to go ahead and pass on that one.

Yummy! Put some of that on a donut! The lather looks fine.