Face Lathering?

[Finick]

I find it interesting how different we all are.

I let my sink water get hot, wet my synthetic brush and give it a light shake. It’s pretty wet when I’m starting out.

When I load the brush I just hold my Arko tub on it’s side and let the excess water run out while I load. I don’t load very heavily. I do one pass with the amount I load, but I’d easily have enough for two or three.

I start at my chin and splay the brush out (easier to do here) and start working it around my face until a lather starts to build. Once this happens the brush tends to just push the lather around my face, and I’ve never really figured out why. If anyone has any input I’d love to hear it.

At this point I switch to doing painting strokes and I just continue to do this until the lather is ready. The lather has a certain sheen to it when it’s ready, and in my opinion the only way to figure out what that looks like for you is to just keep trying.

I’m not sure how long the whole process takes. Not super long. For awhile I was fixated on trying to be very quick and efficient with it. Since I started focusing on just taking the extra minute if I feel like I need to my shaves have become much more consistent and comfortable.

I can’t imagine a bowl kicking my lather up a notch, but I may give it another try someday.

I’ve spent the last 6 years or so face lathering Arko, and I feel like I’m pretty decent at doing so.

 

[SgtCrppls]

It went well, I take it?

Yes very well thanks

 

[Tricky]

I prefer face lathering, I feel like it’s good exfoliation too!

 

[Bklynboy]

When I started wet shaving with a brush I wanted to build merangue like mound of later in the bowl and paint my face with it. It rarely happened so I decided to try face lathering one day and found that it created a thick viscous lather far better than whipping it up in the bowl. I never looked back and continue to get great shaves.

I shake off the excess water in the brush 3 to 5 times depending on the soap and how thirsty it is. Load the brush for 30 second (yes, I still count to "30 mississippi") and later on my face for a minute or two to build it. Always enough later for a second pass left on the brush

 

[nicobie]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'm lucky as I can get a couple passes with just one application of Arko. Maybe it helps that I use an open comb type razor.

 

[DougK]

Once I tried face lathering, I never went back to the bowl either. One less thing to deal with in the morning.

 

[phelix]

Bowl lathering always seemed to me to be a completely unnecessary step. I always figured that the time you're spending in a bowl is time your face is losing moisture. From the time I dropped the can habit I've always face lathered and never even considered bowls as an option until reading BnB. I always came away with the same question, "why waste the time and counter space".

 

[ajkel64]

I like to bowl lather creams. Soaps I much prefer to face lather. Face lathering is so much fun with a good soap.

 

[razorhead63]

I only face lather.
No bowl to deal with!

 

[martym]

I face lather and use a brush scuttle to keep my brush/lather warm. Works great this time of year when temps dip down into the 60’s.

 

[BigJ]

Some great tips above!

Enjoy the experience (I only face lather)!!

 

[Icebear]

I'm generally using Nivea shave cream. I get my face wet, slap a 3/4 inch "worm" of cream on the skin and roughly distribute it. The remaining cream on my fingers I take off with the wet brush and then start building the lather on my face.
If I'm in for a change I start the same routine but go for a super lather combiantion which means going "Russian" with a soap stick (e.g. Palmolive or Speick) first and then slap the cream on top as described above.
Happy shaves