Different lather from different soaps

[Daytodaze]

Hello gents,

I had an interesting situation last night while building some lather. My soap of choice, thus far, has been proraso green. Aside from the first couple days, I've gotten great lathers every time. I wanted to try out some other soaps to see if if like them better, so I picked up proraso white and red. Sandalwood smells awesome, by the way!

i had a failed lather attempt with the white, ended up tossing it (the lather, not the soap), and got a better result with the red, but still not quite as solid as my green lather. I treated both processes the same as my green. Is it normal for different soaps to have different prep, or is it more likely that I was just having a bad shave moment?

 

[takeshi]

It's definitely normal for soaps to behave differently as soaps aren't all identical. I'd expect variations of Proraso to be similar but that isn't based on any experience with Proraso. I just recently picked up my first tub of red and haven't gotten to it yet.

 

[Mbuckwash]

Yep, totally normal. Their ingredients vary by soap, which ultimately provide a different lathering experience. I have the Proraso White in the tub and I almost always fail lathering - typically just underload despite the brush looking totally full of enough soap. In the future, I just need to load longer - no bigger.

 

[Eeyore]

That makes sense ... different products produce different results.

 

[ailevin]

I use Marco's method with a very wet brush for Proraso green, red, and white. I used to load for a certain amount of time, or count swirls, but now I load until I see the lather "start to explode off the brush" (Marco's words). The point is that loading until you see a certain consistency of lather in the brush rather than thinking about a certain amount of soap seems to help compensate for differences in brush size, water content, and soap characteristics to some extent.

 

[Ru4scuba?]

Yep, totally normal. Their ingredients vary by soap, which ultimately provide a different lathering experience. I have the Proraso White in the tub and I almost always fail lathering - typically just underload despite the brush looking totally full of enough soap. In the future, I just need to load longer - no bigger.

+1

 

[Daytodaze]

Interesting. I'm going to try a shave this afternoon with the white, and I'll load up heavy before trying to lather. I'm trying to condition and de-smell a new brush and I used the sandlewood with excellent results on round 2. It's really weird how three 3 different proraso soaps I have all needed slightly different water and load levels.

 

[bassopotamus]

I'm a tad surprised that 3 soaps from the same brand would behave so differently, but I suppose that just means their ingredients differ beyond the scent.

Once you branch out into other brands, soaps are all over the map in terms of lathering, depending on what they are made of, how soft they are, etc.

 

[Daytodaze]

Unless I stockpile supplies, I'll probably be a Proraso guy for a while. At least until Christmas, anyway. Starting to get better results with my sandalwood, but haven't revisited the sensitive. All three soaps have a different appearance. The sandalwood and the sensitive have kind of a metallic shine, while the green just looks like dried soap.

 

[Ru4scuba?]

Unless I stockpile supplies, I'll probably be a Proraso guy for a while. At least until Christmas, anyway. Starting to get better results with my sandalwood, but haven't revisited the sensitive. All three soaps have a different appearance. The sandalwood and the sensitive have kind of a metallic shine, while the green just looks like dried soap.

I love the original Proraso Green and the white isn't far behind in performance. I haven't tried the red soap, only cream and that is amazing too...in the end, I'm a Proraso fan for life