Thread: Does it matter

Originally Posted by Bruno

next newbie question: does it matter what the brush is made of?
I always thought of a brush as simply something to apply soap with.
If I understand you correctly, you have to brush against the grain to lift the hairs?

Some people prefer boar (hard and cheaper) but most prefer badger (softer more expensive) . THe badger brushes come in numerous sizes and different levels with the silvertip badger being the most desirerable. I have tried the boar first, I now pull the bristles out to test during honing. ( I didn't like it) I have two badger brushes and I like them both one best badger and one silvertip. I also lather the creams on my face I go alll different ways, circles, up and down, left and right. It's all good..

OK, suppose I use lather and a brush (still have a cheapo synthetic lying around)
I have this jar of hard shaving soap in the shape of a hockey puck.
I use the brush to create lather, and apply to my face.

What do you do with the rest of the lather you don't use?
Do you rinse it of and start with a hard hockey puck each time, or do you simply let it be and use it to start you next lather?

The lather is basically made up of an innumerable number of tiny air bubbles in the soap. Picture making a bubble bath, and then whipping it until each of the bubbles is too small to see.

Now, remember what happens to the bubble bath when you play in it for a while? All the bubbles pop, and all that's left is dirty bathwater. The same goes for your soap. The next day when you go to use it, the lather that you made the day before will either be gone, or will have condensed down into a filmy muck.

I usually give the mug and puck a rinse before I put it back. Then I make a new lather the next day.

I just had a shave, and it does indeed make a serious difference.
I suspect the magic is in the brushing. I took care to make circular motions with the brush, taking my time to do it.
It felt a lot smoother than at other times.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I just had a shave, and it does indeed make a serious difference.
I suspect the magic is in the brushing. I took care to make circular motions with the brush, taking my time to do it.
It felt a lot smoother than at other times.

Well, there you go. There has to be something to this, doesn't there.

Congratulations and welcome to the world of wet shaving.

Originally Posted by JerseyLawyer

Well, there you go. There has to be something to this, doesn't there.

Congratulations and welcome to the world of wet shaving.

Thanks.
grin.

I used to feel the same way but at least the puck was cheeper than the can so I kept using it. then I found another cheep brand of soap and all of a sudden things got far better. It might have been my water but I expect that the brand of soap with all of the little signs didn't work well for me while the other easy to find cheep drug stor puck seems to work very well.

Cost and waste are factors as well: if you don't go overboard collecting, buying hard soap is much cheaper and you don't have all those cans going into the garbage.

This may be an idiotic question, but where does the mug fit into the grand scheme of brush and soap puck? It is sounding to me like you wet the soap and then use the brush to work the surface into a lather and put this on your face. Is this the case?

The mug keeps the lather from escaping and creating a big mess. You need SOME container for the soap.