Hey guys, I thought I'd share my experiences and see if anyone had some input while I'm at it. Here goes:

I bowl lather extensively.

I started wet shaving with a AOS sample brush and AOS shave cream. I would use AOS preshave oil and seemed to get a decent lather (compared to my latest efforts). The oil greatly helped reduce irritation and it's effects remained consistent as my straight razor technique improved. Then I started reading about shave soaps, and tallow based soaps grabbed my attention.

So after some preliminary research I went out and grabbed a puck of AOS sandlewood shave soap and started to work on my lather technique. I was getting similar results to the cream, though I could tell it was slicker. It was around this time I found out that AOS changed their soaps from a tallow to palmolive base, D'OH! I also picked up a two band brush from PC woodcrafters (GREAT!) and really concentrated on my lathering technique. In about two weeks time I started to get a thick cushy lather with a nice slickness to it. This soap has given me my best shaves so far. I switched to a homemade olive oil based shave oil, and while it helps a bit with my sharpest (harshest) blades, the soap provides most of the slickness. I'm very happy with this soap.

I recently got a Mitchell's Wool Fat, Baker's St., and Bald Frog Sample from Larry at Whipped dog. I've milled the MWF into a bowl and I'm holding off on trying the other two until I have a real good feel for the MWF.

The MWF is hard to lather up for me. The soap seems to really climb up into my brush and I find myself squeezing the hairs after one or two passes to work out that extra bit. I've tried MWF with and without a warm water soak. I've tried not using much water or giving it enough it's near frothy. The soap seems quite slick, but it fades quickly on my face and I experience more irritation with this soap than with the AOS. The other day I got a slightly thicker lather out of the MWF, enough that it could hold on for most of the shave, but I still found myself with some irritation. I will keep trying until I run out of the sample, but so far I'm not sold on the MWF.

I'm looking forward to the Bald Frog (glycerin based) and Baker St. (possibly Tallow, not sure which one I got). I also want to grab some Mike's Natural soap in the near future.

Anyways, just wanted to share my thoughts and experiences.