AimlessWanderer
Remember to forget me!
I have been playing around with this conundrum lately, and have been having some success... without adding improvised bristle restraints. I'm still exploring all this though, in and amongst breaking in a couple of far scrubbier brushes, so my opinions may evolve over the coming weeks.
The primary problem I have with the low backbone brushes, is working the lather through the stubble. Particularly on multi-day growth. Producing lather was no challenge at all, but it was sitting atop the stubble, instead of achieving full coverage at skin level, because the bristles lacked the stiffness to work the lather down to the skin. This left dry unlubricated "shadows" on the skin, no matter how much brushwork I did. Changing how I load the brush, was what led me to more successful results.
Normally when we think of loading the brush, we think of collecting all the soap we might need (and often more then we might need) before we start, and then never revisiting the soap again throughout the shave. With my low backbone brushes, this seems to gum them up, and stop the bristles working efficiently. Avoiding adding too much soap at any time, seemed to be the key to my success.
I got much better results layering up the lather for the first pass. Paint on a little soap, then paint on a little water, then a little more soap, then more water, and so on. This keeps the bristles moving a lot more freely against each other, and the adding water stages helps both loosen up the bristles, and "flush" the lather down to skin level. In fact, I didn't need to do any swirling or scrubbing to work the lather through to where it was needed. Also, the additional time needed to load, paint, dip, paint, load, paint, dip, paint, somewhat offset the working time. By the time there's enough lather, it's already worked through and ready to shave.
Secondly, I found that the low backbone brushes are very nice when loading on the face i.e. lathering a shave stick that's been rubbed directly on the stubble, or cream that has been smeared on the face. Again, layering soap/cream and water helps to prevent getting the bristles matted up with thick lather, and the cloud like softness of the gentler brush avoided overscrubbing and brush burn.
In both instances, what lather was left on the brush was perfectly adequate for lathering the second pass, once the bulk of the stubble has been removed. However, I wouldn't be averse to relayering again if needed. I do plan on (if I remember) trying drizzling some water on the base of the knot before returning it to the brush stand between passes. Again, I think that might help keep the action free, and make it perform better when I pick it back up again.
As I said at the start of this post, this is all a work in progress, and I expect my technique to evolve further.
The primary problem I have with the low backbone brushes, is working the lather through the stubble. Particularly on multi-day growth. Producing lather was no challenge at all, but it was sitting atop the stubble, instead of achieving full coverage at skin level, because the bristles lacked the stiffness to work the lather down to the skin. This left dry unlubricated "shadows" on the skin, no matter how much brushwork I did. Changing how I load the brush, was what led me to more successful results.
Normally when we think of loading the brush, we think of collecting all the soap we might need (and often more then we might need) before we start, and then never revisiting the soap again throughout the shave. With my low backbone brushes, this seems to gum them up, and stop the bristles working efficiently. Avoiding adding too much soap at any time, seemed to be the key to my success.
I got much better results layering up the lather for the first pass. Paint on a little soap, then paint on a little water, then a little more soap, then more water, and so on. This keeps the bristles moving a lot more freely against each other, and the adding water stages helps both loosen up the bristles, and "flush" the lather down to skin level. In fact, I didn't need to do any swirling or scrubbing to work the lather through to where it was needed. Also, the additional time needed to load, paint, dip, paint, load, paint, dip, paint, somewhat offset the working time. By the time there's enough lather, it's already worked through and ready to shave.
Secondly, I found that the low backbone brushes are very nice when loading on the face i.e. lathering a shave stick that's been rubbed directly on the stubble, or cream that has been smeared on the face. Again, layering soap/cream and water helps to prevent getting the bristles matted up with thick lather, and the cloud like softness of the gentler brush avoided overscrubbing and brush burn.
In both instances, what lather was left on the brush was perfectly adequate for lathering the second pass, once the bulk of the stubble has been removed. However, I wouldn't be averse to relayering again if needed. I do plan on (if I remember) trying drizzling some water on the base of the knot before returning it to the brush stand between passes. Again, I think that might help keep the action free, and make it perform better when I pick it back up again.
As I said at the start of this post, this is all a work in progress, and I expect my technique to evolve further.
