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A question for bowl latherers...

Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker

Likes a fat handle in his hand
Wow this sounds like a lot of work. I am thinking maybe you should do a video as it would be easier to follow. I just load my brush straight from the puck.

Really? Well, I aint making no video's I can tell you that, I stopped making video's when Youtube proved to me they had lost their flipping minds.

When I first began wet shaving, I was trying to load the brush from the puck, just like I had seen in other's people Youtube video's. But it just took far too long to load the brush, and I always felt like I had to go back for more, cause there was never enough soap in the brush, and I had to transfer more soap to the bowl. I just got tired of it, and I knew there had to be a better way.

This is when I discovered that some folks, use a spoon, or some other apparatus that works for them, to scoop out the required amount of soap, and place it in the bowl. If your going to be a bowl lather, then you have to learn about how much soap your going to need, and balance that out with the required amount of water, to get that desired lather consistency.

If you wanted to make things more simple, well, you'd skip the bowl lathering all together, and just use either a shave stick, or a cream, and spread directly onto your face, and then use the brush to work up a lather from there. IMO, bowl lathering is just part of the traditional experience, its fun to do, what can I say? And it allows me to easily achieve the lather consistency I am looking for.

And there's nothing wrong with facial lathering either, even I do it sometimes when I am just not in the mood to bowl lather. But even I know, when facial lathering, I still got to get the water consistency right, to achieve optimum slickness. You just gotta figure out what is best for you. But at the end of the day, I think it really comes down to experience.

Like I said, I started 7-months ago. I tried it the traditional way, loading from a puk, ended up hating it, started scooping the soap out, ended up loving it. Find what works for you.
 
I always have leftover lather. I wipe the brush on the edge of the bowl and put both aside for the next day. The lather dries in the bowl and on the brush. The next morning I only need to load the brush for 10 seconds or so, then add water to the bowl and it whips up to a very nice lather really quickly.

I am not trying for depression-era savings, I am just making it easier and quicker. Not having to spend as much time loading/building a lather or any time cleaning adds a bit of efficiency to my morning.
 

Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker

Likes a fat handle in his hand
I always have leftover lather. I wipe the brush on the edge of the bowl and put both aside for the next day. The lather dries in the bowl and on the brush. The next morning I only need to load the brush for 10 seconds or so, then add water to the bowl and it whips up to a very nice lather really quickly.

I am not trying for depression-era savings, I am just making it easier and quicker. Not having to spend as much time loading/building a lather or any time cleaning adds a bit of efficiency to my morning.

Wait, hold the phone! 📞

You leave soap lather in your brush to dry? Oh dear, that poor brush. Hmm, since I am not a 20+ year traditional wet shaving veteran, I am not going to instruct you on what not to do, since I only have 7-months under my belt. I am just going to say, look up what soap does to brush fibers, when left in the brush to dry, and not rinsed out.
 
I have read articles on this. Also there is more misinformation and confirmation bias out there than anything. You can look up folks that have tried it and found it doesn't matter. There is a reason why 60-100 year old brushes are still in service, they were not babied like some do these days. Try shaving like your great grandfather! :)

I've been doing this with one particular boar brush for a year and there are absolutely no adverse effects. I don't buy expensive brushes and don't see the need to baby them. This boar brush is a very cheap one and it doesn't even lose hair due to this. Plus I have stiff whiskers so I use a boar brush and this technique adds to the backbone, I don't want a soft brush, I need to pry the whiskers up.
 
I think my grandfather used an electric... In any event, I'll continue to rinse and clean up my tools when I'm done shaving. Making fresh lather is one of the fun things to do with shaving. Getting everything cleaned and ready for the next day's shave is another satisfying aspect of the ritual. Leaving used lather and a lather sodden brush out to use the next day is, no offense to those who do it, disgusting to me as is filling a sink and thinking you're rinsing your brush when you're really swishing it around in a tub filled with soap scum and bits of whiskers.
 
I lather from the puck, which I keep in an Old Spice shaving mug.....I use the large synthetic brush that Maggard's sells (IMHO,
it is EXCELLENT, btw!). I work up the lather for about twenty seconds, using either Sterling Spice, Sterling Bay Rum, or Proraso red....all my favorites. This gives me enough lather for two passes, and then, since I have a "Friar Tuck" haircut (not much left up there anymore!!!), I squeeze the remaining soap out of the brush and use it to wash my "hair" and scalp! I figure why not start the day smelling like my favorite soap? Then I wash the brush out with hot water and set it out to dry for the next day.....
nothing complicated!
 
been bowl shaving for ten years I used to clean the bowl and brush every shave now I just clean the brush after gently squeezing the lather into the bowl. I have a 26mm motherlode knot that saps up water that I forget and end up making a ton of lather, my 15~18mm badger knots can usually ride that dried up lather two shaves after loading a wee bit of fresh soap to bring in some fresh scent.
 
I had always been a face latherer (if that is proper term) And then tried a copper bowl and gave up after about a week or two as I felt I was lathering the bowl and then my face and I could skip a step.

Fast forward a year and a half and I found out my birthday present was going to be a custom made bowl and matching brush. (I lost my beloved wife more than 5 1/2 years ago and am now seeing a wonderful woman who wanted to get me something special for my birthday.) I pulled out my heavy copper Captain’s Choice bowl to give bowl lathering a second chance. This time it clicked and I’m now a bowl latherer. The new bowl and brush (high mountain silvertip) arrived two days after my birthday and is also great.

I have now come to realize that even though it did nor seem so, I was using more soap face lathering. I may rinse a fair amount of the bowl lather down the drain, it is actually less and the lather is of a better quality.

Occasionally, I will also spread the remaining lather on my face and rinse it off as a post shave luxury.

So, yes I have leftover lather and no I’m not bothered by it.




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I have a little left over, sometimes a little more. I pretty much know how much to make by now, but when I do go overboard it just goes down the drain during clean up. The soaps that I use are in the $10.00 to $16.00 range so what I'm actually washing away doesn't bother me.
 

Phoenixkh

I shaved a fortune
I know many people consider bowl lathering an extra step, but for me.... all my soaps and creams are pristine in their respective tubs... I don't have to clean the threads after I scoop or scrape the soap, cream or croap out. I clean my brush in the shaving bowl, initially. So for me, using a bowl is actually easier in every way I can think of.

I don't just paint on the lather... I scrub it in as if I "was" face lathering... so I get that benefit as well.

As has been said.. it's only shaving. There is a myriad of ways to approach it. That's part of the fun.
 
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