Finally made a decent looking lather in a bowl! It SUCKED!!!

[JCinPA]

My apologies to the OP for misunderstanding his issues and being a jerk.

There is entirely too much thought going on about lathering here, IMO. We are, to a large extent, an experimental and OCD bunch and I think we overcomplicate things a lot.

This will solve your problem, guaranteed, I did this today because of this thread. I stand by my comments, use Arko as a stick, you won't have any problem. But with any CROAP, hard-milled soap, or artisan, I have your solution right here. Good luck!

Foolproof Lather Method (TM) - any soap - any brush

I am a Lather Master! Not being braggadocious, just stating a fact. And you can be too! I'm here to teach you. No need for a Brotherhood of Lather Masters, every member of B&B should be a Lather Master. Unfortunately, with so many people who enjoy this activity so much, and the more OCD of us...

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[Multum in parvo]

I have gotten some advice here that I am going to try. And I will definitely continue to face lather. It just seems like this should be so simple, but others have chimed in saying they are not very good at it either. Is this one of those deals where you yo have an "A HA" moment and it all just falls into place?

I only tried a horse brush a couple of times and was not happy with it. A cheap Omega boar once broken in or a cheap Yaqi Synth right out of the box will make lather in less than a minute if needed. A horse might as well but I have not enough experience with it.

Look if you find some suitable bowl in the kitchen and give it another go with the VieLong.

Shave some thin slices of Arko from the stick and smear them to the bottom of your new bowl

Add a teaspoon of warm water to it and after a minute take your damp brush to it

Try to dissolve the slices by pushing the brush tips gently into them - no mashing!

The brush will release some water and if needed you can add another teaspoon

You should end up with soapy water and nearly no remnants of the slices

Then start whisking back and forth and occasionally round

First you will have bigger bubbles but soon 60-90 seconds you should have a good basic lather

The finish is then a bit trial and error/experience as you have to judge the shininess and structure of the lather (more whisking or a couple of drops water)

Good Luck

 

[sm29]

Shaving is a learning curve for us all because a lot of us were never taught this wet shaving tradition on how to properly shave

Funny you say this. I mentioned this to my father some years ago and he told me that nobody ever taught him to shave. I think people just shaved as they imagined it should be done. I don’t believe anyone ever taught me how to shower for instance it just happened.

In the forum and you tube era we are privy to so much information and possibly information overload. There is alto be learned but we have to be judicious with what we accept as truth. YMMV has never been more true.

 

[ylekot]

I used JCinPA's method and made good lather! Not a lot but enough and it worked quite well!!
I put a quarter sized disc of Arko stuck to the bottom of the small bowl to load the brush and used a larger bowl of the same style to whip it up and IT WORKED!!!

Thank You JCinPA!!!!

 

[RumpleBearskin]

Fantastic!!! That's great news @ylekot! I TOTALLY subscribe to John's method. Been doing it that way for 8 years, just never found words as good as his to describe it.

 

[andromeda673]

I used to struggle with Williams too, lots of water, a really soaked brush, and lots of soak time, once you do that, drain the water from both, and get to whipping up, you might have to whip up a lather for 5 minutes sometimes, you have to work the air bubbles out, that’s the trick.

 

[srqshaver]

Bowl lathering never gives me good results. It always incorporates too much air, which gives the photogenic meringue look, but performs appallingly. The only time I use the bowl nowadays, is for loading cream onto a brush, or for starting slow lathering soaps, to avoid getting brush burn. By slow lathering soaps, I mean soaps like Martin de Candre, which I find slow to incorporate water, and transform to lather.

Face lathering is how I get my best performing results, and my best performing results look nothing like the lather porn pics. If I were ever to make a lathers that formed peaks, I'd know I'd ruined it, and would have to start again.

I’m very new to wet shaving but I have the same experience thus far. It’s much harder for me to create a quality lather in a bowl, an extra step, more mess, and so on. Also, isn’t the point of using a brush to apply lather, besides whipping said lather, is lifting the hairs? I’m not telling anyone what to do by any means but I personally can’t see a reason to do it.

 

[JCinPA]

You're getting into the bowl lathering vs face lathering, which is the better way arena. Don't go there. The answer is both are viable, it's a preference thing. That's all. No unecessary steps, your finding it easier to not use a bowl has nothing to do with ylekot's desire to figure it out. We get into too many "Why don't you all do it my way" discussions around here. DE, SE, SR, creams, soaps, synths, boars, badgers. Your experience with bowl lathering has nothing to do with anyone else's experiences or preferences.

Glad you like face lathering. Keep at it. I sort of do a little of both. I get the lather started in a bowl, but fairly early move to finish on the face. It's all good.

 

[Ron R]

I’m very new to wet shaving but I have the same experience thus far. It’s much harder for me to create a quality lather in a bowl, an extra step, more mess, and so on. Also, isn’t the point of using a brush to apply lather, besides whipping said lather, is lifting the hairs? I’m not telling anyone what to do by any means but I personally can’t see a reason to do it.

Sounds like you have figured out your way of shaving and a lot of folks shave just that way. I remember cartridge shaving with Gillette gel and all I did was wet the face a little apply gel with my hand and hand massage lather and did that for 30+ years.
Why change that 30 year old system is because a bowl does have some advantages like not using your skin as a washboard to get your lather correct and less irritation for some. I mentioned a few reasons in previous posts on this thread, I'm retired and have time as where younger folks have to get to work.........time restrictions.
A lather bowl is a shaving tool to me and I can fine tune my lather if I want or just make foam for a quick shave. Arko can be a little harsh on the skin if you load a brush and smear it and then add a little water that takes about 1 minute from my experiences to make a nice Arko lather, a bowl with pressed in Arko and fine tune the lather in the bowl takes about 1 minute and I can just paint the lather instead of scrubbing my face with Arko.
I find a lot of Youtube shaving celebrities use bowls also because they can apply more painting lather with a slight scrub. I find a bowl more enjoyable than other methods out there. So there are about 4 different ways to at least to make lather, (1)Canned foam or gel and use your hands to massage the ingredients on your face to make nice lather , (2)use a lather machine to give you heated foam and use a brush or hand massage, (3)load your brush from the soap tub and face lather and just add a little water to generate your lather or (4) press a little soap into the lather bowl and generate lather and then paint lather on my wet face for less irritation & drying out of skin.
I have done all these methods and still prefer bowl lathering, I can still face lather if I choose any time but I enjoy a step more by using the bowl it seems.

 

[srqshaver]

Sounds like you have figured out your way of shaving and a lot of folks shave just that way. I remember cartridge shaving with Gillette gel and all I did was wet the face a little apply gel with my hand and hand massage lather and did that for 30+ years.
Why change that 30 year old system is because a bowl does have some advantages like not using your skin as a washboard to get your lather correct and less irritation for some. I mentioned a few reasons in previous posts on this thread, I'm retired and have time as where younger folks have to get to work.........time restrictions.
A lather bowl is a shaving tool to me and I can fine tune my lather if I want or just make foam for a quick shave. Arko can be a little harsh on the skin if you load a brush and smear it and then add a little water that takes about 1 minute from my experiences to make a nice Arko lather, a bowl with pressed in Arko and fine tune the lather in the bowl takes about 1 minute and I can just paint the lather instead of scrubbing my face with Arko.
I find a lot of Youtube shaving celebrities use bowls also because they can apply more painting lather with a slight scrub. I find a bowl more enjoyable than other methods out there. So there are about 4 different ways to at least to make lather, (1)Canned foam or gel and use your hands to massage the ingredients on your face to make nice lather , (2)use a lather machine to give you heated foam and use a brush or hand massage, (3)load your brush from the soap tub and face lather and just add a little water to generate your lather or (4) press a little soap into the lather bowl and generate lather and then paint lather on my wet face for less irritation & drying out of skin.
I have done all these methods and still prefer bowl lathering, I can still face lather if I choose any time but I enjoy a step more by using the bowl it seems.

Excellent reply. Thank you for your insight. Every little bit of info helps me understand why people do things differently and whether any of it would benefit me.

 

[ylekot]

Excellent reply. Thank you for your insight. Every little bit of info helps me understand why people do things differently and whether any of it would benefit me.

The reason I wanted to bowl lather is 2 fold. 1 I want to try out different soaps and not all of them are good for rubbing on the face and then lathering like an Arko stick, 2 Warming up the lather bowl will make warm lather which can't possibly be bad in the winter!

 

[srqshaver]

The reason I wanted to bowl lather is 2 fold. 1 I want to try out different soaps and not all of them are good for rubbing on the face and then lathering like an Arko stick, 2 Warming up the lather bowl will make warm lather which can't possibly be bad in the winter!

Good reasons. I’ve been meaning to try a shave stick but haven’t yet. I suppose another good reason is to not lather from the original container but instead take clean scoops out. I’ve seen many people do that so they can keep the soaps clean. It seems like there’s a never ending amount of things to learn.

 

[ylekot]

Good reasons. I’ve been meaning to try a shave stick but haven’t yet. I suppose another good reason is to not lather from the original container but instead take clean scoops out. I’ve seen many people do that so they can keep the soaps clean. It seems like there’s a never ending amount of things to learn.

And each new skill leads to another rabbit hole!

 

[OkieStubble]

I am in love with that aged copper bowl he revealed a few days ago! I think I will try to master what I have first.

I have to admit, that Captain's Choice copper bowl is a looker! Every time I see someone post a pic of their copper bowl, the patina on the copper makes the bowl look different every time. Ima gunna have to git me one.

 

[engblom]

Are you folks actually using a whole bunch of soap and washing most of it down the drain? I have watched the videos and read the tutorials and tried and tried, it seems to be less effective and WAY more wasteful of product than simply face lathering. I do not understand.

For several years I was building my lather in a huge 3D-printed cup I had designed. Then I begun face lathering. The shaving cream consumption went down with about a third, so noticeable but not great enough that iy would have made me pick one over the other. The reason I didn't go back anymore to cup/bowl lathering is that my shaves improved a lot by building the lather on my face. With face lathering the soap/cream stays slightly longer on the beard (as you have it there already during lather building) and it is better massaged in. This gives softer whiskers to shave.

 

[Tirvine]

Sorry to barge in as a face latherer, but I get nice warm face lather quite easily and quite quickly. It does not have the whipped cream appearance, being much thinner and wetter, but it makes for terrific shaves. Literally 10 seconds or less turning a brush full of hot water over the top of a hard puck and spreading it over the face in a very brief swirling motion. The brush stands on its bottom while I make the first pass. I barely dip it in hot water to warm it up and add a bit more water for each subsequent pass. In short, if your reason for selecting your lathering method is the desire for warmth, face lathering can be used. When I read about others taking time measured in minutes to perform a job I do in seconds that gives me excellent results and allows a puck to last over a year, I would be hard pressed to change, but as others have said, it is a matter of preference.

 

[musicman1951]

Are you folks actually using a whole bunch of soap and washing most of it down the drain? I have watched the videos and read the tutorials and tried and tried, it seems to be less effective and WAY more wasteful of product than simply face lathering. I do not understand.

I face lather and bowl lather (well, the bowl is in my scuttle). They both use the same amount of product. Why wouldn't they? Same lather, same face to cover. Of course if you're entering the show your lather beauty contest you want to put extra lather in your bowl for the money shot, but other than that why would you make more lather than you'll use with either method (OK, there is always a little left either way).

In the winter face lathering offers lather that cools more as it sits between passes. By the third pass it definitely doesn't qualify as hot. The scuttle, on the other hand, increases the heat of the lather over the time of the three passes. The third pass is the warmest, as opposed to the coolest.

But that doesn't change the shave in any way - same shave with either method. I just like the warm lather, it is by no means a necessity.

If you haven't quite finished your prep, face lathering offers an opportunity to get more moisture to work for you. That might be a consideration for some people. Try them both, use what works for you - like everything else.