Thread: 1st Pass a No-Go? Try This

So once in awhile I'll lather up to start a shave with known great edges, and this happens: the blade just skips, catches, and doesn't want to cut-not good. I've had this happen a few times over the years, often with MWF but occasionally other soaps, that I think when newbies complain about a poor shave, this may sometimes be the culprit (assuming they've got a properly-honed and stropped edge-not always a safe assumption). This evening I bloomed my dedicated MWF mug with hot water about an hour ahead of time, got a huge cloud of wet lather (or so I thought) with my soap-hog brush, and applied it to a wet face, dipping the tips a few times as I face-lathered this known water-hog soap-good to go, right?

Not so fast-2 of my best shavers, a nice WB I won in the Giveaway and honed by Outback Mike, and one of my own Boker Hollow Grounds, both got majorly hung up. What the?!

Then I remembered what I have done before when this happened: rinse off most of the lather with as hot a water as I can stand, and re-apply, taking care to get it extra wet. I then tried the same blades, one for each side on all three passes-ahhhh, bliss. That MWF is as slick as any other if you work with it a bit. It seems that this water-hog soap (and come to think of it, I've had the same thing occur a couple times with Proraso, also a known water-hog) just needed another, wetter lather to allow my best blades to get their respective glides on.

So if you're relatively new, and you start off with a blade just not shaving, try this fix and see what happens. I'm betting some of you veterans have experienced this. Just my 2 cents.