Thread: i think my prep sucks

i recently got some soap from colleen and decided to have a nice midnight shave. So far the soaps I've used are limited. Florena cream, omega shave soap which seems like hard cream, and williams soap. I've had no real problems getting these to lather, but Colleen soap gave me some problems. I couldn't get it as thick, and it dried fairly quickly.

Any tips on how to get a great lather using colleen's soaps? i need an overview of the general method you use

how much water? lather on the face or in a bowl? etc

Heya Eric,

Had myself a nice shave this evening as well. I don't have even as much experience as you with soaps, but we overlap in two spots. Williams and Colleen's.

I find Williams best to work with just a tad more water than you think you'd need, and you got lather everywhere.

Colleen's I've been fighting with a bit. I think it might be our hard water. I soak my brush, which is just a boar hair, then shake the 'heaviness' out of it. It's still quite wet, just not 'sopping'. I work on the soap until I get a kind of ... hard lather, it's kinda hard to explain. The lather is really solid, looks like nice icing. I need a good amount of it though, just a little won't cut it, need to really sock that brush full of a good 'base' to get the other part working.

Then I take as much of that as I can off the soap and put in another dish, and do a quick dab under the hot water from the tap to lighten it up a bit. Ends up more nice lather, hydrated, etc. I end up sloppin' it on the face and working it around, end result about a 3-4mm thick layer. If I go really nice and fluffy lather, it just bubbles into nothing after a couple minutes. If I don't use enough water (and I don't use much) then it dries quick. But when I hit it just so, it stays slick for a while, if not all purty and fluffy. Gets the job done though.

I go through the soap quick this way though, but there doesn't seem to be an option. Just means I get to buy more soap more often, haha. I will say though that a cake of williams lasts me nigh-on forever, no matter how much I abuse it and work lather straight off it.

I do a hot wet washcloth before, if I haven't showered. End result, shaving still feels a bit 'scrape-like' but I kind of like that. Then the menthol aftershave stuff Colleen sent me as a trial really finishes things off. Cold rinse, and that, and I feel pretty brand new.

Hope this helps a bit. I'm pretty sure it's got to do with the hardness of the water. That's all with just plastic 'bowls' that hold no heat or anything at all, if that makes any difference.

I'd be tempted to blame it on the hard water but I'll play around to see what I can come up with (maybe I'll use some distilled water and see the difference in results). For now, I'm using a boar brush too and I think because of it I'll start lathering in a bowl instead of on the face. The brush doesn't like to retain the water and lather ends up getting thrown everywhere, so this might be why I'm getting a lather than dries quickly. I use the method described here:

http://www.classicshaving.com/articl...0351/18187.htm

It helps ease the soap consumption as colleens soap is quite soft to begin with. I also just read this method last night and will have to try it:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21136

Yeah I try to do that second one you linked up there.

Maybe my brush is still a bit too wet to start with though, because I have to load it up a lot more than that guy does if his pics are anything to really judge by. He also uses more water for the lathering part than I can successfully do, because it seems to go sorta 'flat' on me if i jump the gun on water.

If you start to figure it out, do post your results, Eric.

Personally, I've found nice fluffy lather looks nice, but a good slick protection is a better idea, haha.