I just received a monster 28mm in the mail today and I'm a bit frustrated with it. I let it soak while I showered as normal however, when I went to create a lather, it took a lot of effort to whip something up. My experiences with a 23mm E&J Super Badger and a Omega Boar brush required much less effort to create something. Is this because the brush is soaking up a lot of the lather as it's being created in which it takes longer to lather into the bowl? After the shave, I did squeeze from the handle up and I was very surprised as to how much sat in the brush.