Thread: Face Lathering convert!

Good Morning All.... I haven't posted in a quite a while, so I thought I'd write today. I recently started face-lathering, especially with my Mitchells Wool Fat, Tabac, etc..and MAN...what a difference!! I've been making lather in my bulldog mug since I started straight razor shaving about a year ago. I had been reading quite a bit about the benefits of face lathering, and decided to try it out, and I'm thrilled that I did! It seems I get a creamier, thicker lather that, with the brush, really gets in and around, and on all my beard. I know this is old news to some, but I thought I'd share for anyone else that hasn't tried it yet. Do yourself the favor, it makes an already fun ritual, all the better..and smoother!! Take Care all..

Nick

I still use a mug of lather sometimes, but I started trying face-lathering a couple of months ago, and I like it a lot. It's certainly quicker, and I found that if the lather comes out too thick or too thin, it's much easier to add more water or soap directly to the face than to correct a mugful of lather (which doesn't seem to work well IME.)

I've also moved from "bowl lather" to "face lather".

Only thing missing -- my "bowl lather" was warm, and my "face lather" isn't. Aside from that, I don't see much difference.

I wonder if it's possible to do "uber-lather" on the face ?

. . . . Charles

I go back and forth a bit, but I always go back to bowl lathering when at home. I have an old stoneware bowl, roughly the size of an over-sized cereal bowl but with much thicker walls. I fill it with boiling hot water from the tea pot, and leave it with the brush while I shower. The inside of the bowl is slightly rough so it provides a great surface to whip up lather on. I am sure I could make anything foam in that bowl. The lather is piping hot when I apply it, and it is still warm on the third pass.

When I travel I face lather. I heat the water in the in-room coffee brewer and let the brush soak in the tooth brush glass.

haha! i'm a face lathering pureist Nick! if you can get an omega boar professional brush, I forget the number, its the black handle with blonde hairs, its sensational!

get the tap water really hot, soak the brush under the tap and slap the hot water on your face... now run the brush under the tap again - these brushes hold water like a camel, they're great! - flick it once and only once and lather from the puck.

Now the fun bit... load up the brush, and if the water's hot and abundant enough, the puck will explode with lather but get rid of the first frothy bubbles that come out first. hold your tub sideways and let the first airy lather drop into the sink... after 3 seconds or so vigorously load up the brush until you can feel the start of a thick lather on the brush, then go to your face and crop circle away until you look like lather christmas haha, using the excess lather stuck to the side of the MWF tub to supplement any dry lather starting to form.

The thing is once you squeeze the omega brush it lets go of all its stored warm water and you have warm lather every time!

happy lathering
alex

I wonder if it's possible to do "uber-lather" on the face ?

oh yes, the arko shave stick and MWF are really good, load up from the stick and add it to the MWF tub, and lather away!

I build up my lather on top of the puck of soap and transfer it to my face. The lather is usually too thick at first but is easily watered down on subsequent passes by running the brush quickly through hot running water. It's the only way to lather as far as I'm concerned. Quicker, easier and better.

Funny but I face lathered for years and only recently have I started doing it in a bowl. I far prefer the latter actually because it keeps the lather warm and I get alot more usable lather that I can reapply for second or third passes. To each their own!

I bowl lather more than face lather and find advantages and disadvantages to both. Both will produce good lather for me.

After reading post #5 I decided to try an uber lather face lathering. Took my usual amount of Macca Root used in bowl uber lathers and spread it around my face. Loaded up my Semogue 1305 boar with Vitos Red and had at her. The result was a very good lather that lasted for 3 passes and touch ups without having to reload the brush with Vitos. So yea, you can do a facial uber lather.

Bob

I am also an always face latherer. For the comment above about the lather being cold, just soak the brush in the hottest water you have for a few seconds before applying the brush to the soap and it should still be warm when it gets to your face. If it's cream (which I find alarming when it's cold in the morning), instead of putting it on your face, mash a small worm of cream into the top bristles of the brush quickly and then run the whole operation under hot water.

I face lather because it only takes about 30 seconds to get a very firm lather, and all of the information that is out there about working lather in as much as possible, well, isn't that what you're doing when you face lather?

There are some things that folks do with later that confuse me, like working extremely hard to build a very dense lather in a bowl, and then continuously going over a same area, buffing or whatever, after they've taken a stroke and removed the lather from their faces.

Realistically, it seems like a face lather is the way to go if you shave every day, need good lather, want to work it in and need it quickly. If a soap or brush combination doesn't allow that, then it seems a good idea to change the soap or brush until you have something that has a nearly ready lather in 10 seconds.

I prefer to face lather as well, my normal ritual is to use a hot flannel pre-shave so I drop my brush into a sink of hot as I can stand water to pre-heat while I apply the flannels. I have found that the brush will hold enough lather for a 3 pass shave but I prefer to drop the brush in the basin between passes trading time/effort/soap against hot lather.