Black Ship soap technique recommendations

[Desmodromic]

To date, I've been a Proraso cream user. I am fortunate to have a beautiful Georgetown G12 scuttle and enjoy using it but lately have found that I seem to have really nice shaves when face-lathering the Proraso cream. A dab on each cheek and it comes to a nice lather quickly.

I'm interested in trying soap as an alternative, so I've got some Black Ship soap coming to try, based on recommendations here. I do like menthol so I have a tub of Shiver Me Timbers and also a tub of Ghost Ship as many seemed to enjoy that one. Somewhat difficult to pick scents as I'm not sure what I really like other than the cool menthol-ish of Proraso green.

Looking for some recommendations on lathering techniques and how to use the Black Ship soap to best effect. Scoop a small amount of soap into my scuttle? Bloom the soap and dab the brush and move to the scuttle? Load the brush and face lather? I expect that this is all a matter of personal preference but I also assume different products have optimium techniques, hence the post and question.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

-Mark

 

[Racquet]

I have Thomas Tew soap and aftershave from when Blackship was Beaver Woodwright, I always load from
the container and face lather with all of my soaps with no issues. Thomas Tew is a decent soap with a nice
orange scent. The aftershave has too much alcohol for me. Face lathering is just easier and I generate a good lather
without what I consider wasted extra steps. Of course YMMV

 

[sugardaddy]

I use a bowl, but it's much larger than that scuttle. My four passes would overrun that pretty easily.


Most use a bowl, instead of face, because that's my favorite.

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

 

[Desmodromic]

Some variation, as I expected. I sent a note to Kelly to ask for recommendations as well.

Thanks sugardaddy, I'll check out the videos for sure.

 

[Desmodromic]

Following up on this one - I sent a note to Kelly at Black Ship, who was super helpful. Kelly's advice was to NOT bloom their soaps, not that it was assuredly a bad thing but that he has had customers who didn't have good experience with this method.

Since the Black Ship soaps are more of a "croap" (softer soap), he said they should be easy to load on the brush and that in fact it's easy to over-do it.

Those of you who have used Black Ship products are obviously already familiar, but wanted to add some feedback I received from Kelly in the event that someone else who hasn't tried their products is interested down the road.