Thread: Cushion? So what is cushion?

In my mind (however small and insignificant it might be) there are two properties of a lather that are important to me. I label them as slickness/glide and cushion.

I have found lathers that are plenty slick, but lack in protecting the skin from the edge (glycerine soaps are very slick but seem to be light in cushion, creams seem to be the most protective/cushioned, but can be sticky if too dry) and some soaps/creams offer both in spades. I am not sure cushion is provided if there is no slickness. The edge would just stick and skip.

What it actually is.... I dunno..... I think of it as that thin layer that the edge/bevel glides on... a combination of soap and water... the actual lather is just a way to keep water on the skin without it running off.
A plain water shave would not work for me... I have tried... the razor just sticks in several places and if I were to push it, I'd be sorry. The addition of some emulsified oil/fat helps the blade glide across the skin. It is kind of the same as motor oil in an engine, there are lots of moving parts and most of the oil just sloshes around, acting as a coolant on various parts, but there is always a very thin layer of this oil that keeps metal parts from actually touching each other while moving. It's why your engine can last so long.


Barbers and their infernal "warm ice cream". My dad was an old school barber... one of his favourite tricks was to get some unsuspecting kid to try tasting the whipped cream looking stuff coming out of the lather machine.

In a barbershop shave of yesteryear, as I remember it.... First lather, then steam towel.... remove lather and then steam towel number two.... then re-lather and shave. As the steam towels provided the moisture, the lather could be a touch drier. While those lather machines and the default lather they produced was less than optimal, it did serve the purpose required. One was to add some slickness, then it was a way to capture the stubble being shaved, so it didn't end up in the customers collar, and third, it was a visual guide of where the skin had already been shaved if it were a 2 pass shave. My dad always had a barbers towel over his left shoulder which he used to wipe the lather off his razor. The lather machine was a time saver over brush and soap, and had a much lower chance of dribbling water down a customers neck and into his collar. Back in the 50s and 60s, gents in suits would stop in for their shave before going to the office in the morning... it would hardly be acceptable to have lather stains on their shirt collars.

This brings up another tidbit about the wide blades "for barbers use" we see from the old days. If one goes back in time far enough in England, it was common for the barber to go to the customer. The wider the blade of the razor, the more lather it could hold before needing to be wiped off. As the barber was in the customers home, he was unlikely to carry much in the way of towels or have his equipment carefully arranged at his fingertips as he does around his barbers chair, so reducing the number of times the razor had to be wiped/cleaned was important. I'm quite sure my dads razors at his shop were mostly in the 5/8" size, not the huge W&B type wedges from the 1800s.

And.... my dad, while spending much time on making pasted strops and honing razors at home, never used a straight for shaving himself. He would use a DE with his preferred Wilkinson Sword blades. However, he frequently used a straight for hair cuts, and as a young lad, when it was my turn for a hair cut, I always asked if he would use the straight, as I really enjoyed the sensation over the use of clippers and scissors.


Regards

Christian