Here's my take: if I'm doing "The Fat", I keep it in a ceramic bigger than coffee mug bowl and soak the badger for a cpl mins in hot h2o. After the 2 mins of brush soak a shake it out pretty well and give it an intro to Mr Mitchell sans water. This will load up w/in 1-2 mins then. I then dip a cnr of my loaded brush into some hot water and face lather...you have a good brush so why not use it on your face the whole time.

If I'm using a cream (c.o. Bigelow) I'll soak the brush and give it one shake then build in my bronze bowl. Sometimes I'll intro the brush to a glycerin soap a few rounds then go to work with the cream. Seems to be good thus far...but it's all subjective my man. Experimenting is the fun part