Thread: Can't get a glide worth anything with different soaps

I am relatively new to straight blade shaving. Got my razor (Thiers-Issard Spartacus) and brush (Edwin Jagger pure badger) in October. I was having a hard time with getting a lather with my Col Conks soap. So, I switched to Taylor of Old Bond St sandalwood soap. I can get a lather now but I cannot get it to give me a glide at all. I have tried less water, more water, distilled water all without success. My most recent attempt started out too wet and then ended up too dry and foamy with almost not glide. Any suggestions would be appreciated!! I live in southeast Georgia near Savannah so my tap water is pretty hard to start with.

I think one of the big things is not loading enough soap in the first place for one. Other than that it is a matter of getting the right ratio of soap to water. I found a good sign that the lather is about right is when it get a sort of pearl essence
sheen to it. I also found this vid very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4zESTQWDuw

Bob

Excellent "how to" video on making a lather!
Take your time making a lather and do what is said in the video...... Pamper yourself and enjoy!

I have to admit that this video was what I used to figure out how to get a nice lather from soaps.

It is unfortunate that you ended up picking my two least favorite soaps. Still, you should be able to make them work.

Colonel Conk. Glyserin based soaps, need water in the brush.... they are thirsty soaps and you will never get lather without enough water. It needs to be worked.... just a few swirls won't do anything, use a wet brush (maybe one light flick to toss off any excessive water, but it should still be close to dripping), and start swirling..... when it's starting to look like it's actually starting to lather, it's time to face lather or in a pinch, palm lather... unless you have a bowel you can use.

Tobs soaps are not quite as thirsty, but again, better too much water than not enough as it will NEVER work. Too much water and you'll end up with enough lather for 10 men, but at least you'll have enough lather.

It is called wet shaving because you need as much water as possible involved. Water by itself just runs down your face and does nothing to improve the glide of the razor. Too much soap causes billows of dry lather that also aren't much worth writng home about. You need enough soap to give you the glide AND firm up the water enough to stay put on your face.

Bubbles of air will not add moisture to your beard, so you need to add only as much soap as is needed to keep the water on your face and just enough to get a good glide.... It can be tricking in the beginning to get the mix just right so in the beginning, make sure the brush is wet, not dripping wet, and swirl on that cake of soap until it starts to look good. Then move on to your face, palm, bowl or whatever you choose and continue to work the lather until it is wet but firm enough to not allow water to run down your face. I like face lathering.... why waste all that scrubbing and swirling!

It's also not about getting a 1" thick layer on your face, like you can with the canned stuff... a 1/8" layer is more than enough.

Don't worry about wasting lather.... first you have to learn how to make it, and that usually entails making too much. If you try to make too little... well, it's gonna be too little..... and you're not going to get a decent shave.

I would say Tobs is better than Conk, but if you can learn to make decent lather ouf ot a puck of Conk, you won't have any real problems with other soaps.

Good luck


Christian

I don't live to far away in Augusta. I drive through that area pretty often.