Quote Originally Posted by Utopian View Post
I've never understood the concept of taking something homogenous, like soap, and grating it into small flakes and then pressing it back into something homogenous, like soap. After a couple of times adding water to it, it's going to go right back into the state it was before it was grated. I know a lot of people recommend doing it, but it makes no sense to me.

For the people who are having trouble with this, or any other soap, do you try it and fail and then go on to another soap for the next shave? I have a hard time believing that relatively competent latherers would not be able to figure out MWF after a couple of successive days of attempts. If you just gradually keep adding water you should be able to come up with at least a pretty good lather.
Honestly I don't know really why it works but can only offer up a theory. I think that being it is such a hard soap that grating and pressing it kinda softens it up and thus easier to pick up more lather. Also if you press it but leave it a little rough it creates more surface area for which the brush can touch at one time thus again making it easier to load. This is just a theory that I kinda just came up with. It was suggested to me to do when I was newer to the game and was first using MWF and I have been doing it ever since. It works for some kinda reason.