Thread: time for soap or cream to absorb water?

JMO
I now live in a hard water area. I must leave the soap for at least two to three minutes to get a slick lather. Even creams such as Bigelow/ Proraso requires time to become fully hydrated.
And, it takes about double the amount of product to make decent lather.

~Richard

I have pretty hard water, I think this morning I will try loading the brush before I shower, and see what that does.

so this morning I took my badger brush, soaked it with warm water while I stropped, loaded it with some taylor of old bond sandalwood cream, gave it just enough swirls in a bowl to get the water loaded into the cream, then took a 10 min shower, and then went to shaving. and man what a difference. the first pass was way slicker than even the last pass of anytime ive used it before, and the last pass was even better.

so now to try that out with my other favorites and see if its consistent

When I really want to enjoy the shave, I use the following progression:
- shower
- hot towel
- lather my face using hot lather
- brush my teeth, strop my razor - just use up 5 minutes
- wash off the lather and reapply hot towel
- apply hot lather again
- shave

Not sure if it makes any real difference, but I sure feel good when it’s done.

The general rule of thumb with this hobby


Take your Time and the results get better

Shaving
Honing
Stropping
even Lather Making

The more time and care you put in,,, you get back in better results

^^^^ Yup on all posts. Soap and creams need to be hydrated well to perform well, some more than others, and water hardness IMO makes a huge difference, in fact I'm on holiday on the fair isle of Feurtenventura and the difference in sickness with TOBS Coconut compared to back home is night and day. Then again they say the water we have from the Thames river goes through at least 4 people before we get the pleasure of using it

Making lather takes a bit of time. The soap must be worked and hydrated to become lather.

The more you work the soap, either in a bowl or on your face, the better the lather will become. The more water you incorporate the slicker the lather will become. It takes effort.

I would guess this explains the improvement in your lather as you progress pass to pass.

Good luck on Forged in Fire

Soaps vary so much in what they need to be at peak performance.

You have to learn the soap and the brush. Then you should have more consistent results from the beginning of the shave to the end.