Hard water lather (with pics!

[keller]

Evening gents,

I decided to make this thread based on an interesting problem I had, for which I created a thread here: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/436497-Really-peculiar-problem

I don't want to be too repetitious, so please take a look at the above thread for background into this. Regardless, I'm hoping someone finds this useful. It was an experiment of sorts. I have a question at the end of it, so hopefully a lather expert can chime in. 5 years of wet shaving and I have never had a lather like this (now you really should read the initial thread)! OK! Rambling /end. Here we go!

1. We start with a fully submerged EJ best badger brush and a fully submerged puck of Tabac, both under warm (not hot) water. We'll skip this pic.

2. After 15 minutes of soaking, all of the water from the soap is drained and dumped. Brush is rid of water only to the extent gravity pulls it out + 2 firm shakes to get rid of just a little excess. Here's what the brush looks like at that point, with the soap glistening in the background.


3. A full minute of swirling on the puck. I'm not used to having such a wet brush when I load so this looks really wrong to me but I continue in the name of science.


4. I begin to build lather in a dry bowl. Here is what the brush and bowl look like after 1 minute, then two minutes of lather building, respectively.


Continued...

 

[keller]

5. I didn't snap pics at the 3 minute mark b/c not much was changing but between the 3rd and 4th minute, things got crazy. Here's what the brush and bowl looked like. It looks oversaturated as you can see the peak collapsed. No water was added at all during the entire 4 minutes.


6. I then squeezed everything out of the brush and grabbed about 70% of the lather in the bowl and scooped it onto my hand. I didn't think it was physically possible for my EJ to generate and hold this much lather. It looked great for the most part and felt slick.


So now!!... Here's my big question - the lather behaved and felt like it was oversaturated. The biggest indicator of this was it's inability to hold peaks. However, if you look at my thumb in the last pic (sorry, it didn't look as blurry on my phone) as well as my middle finger in one of the pics above, the lather is beginning to dry out and looks like it's about to flake off. So I've got both an oversaturated and undersaturated lather? I suspect that because of the limited coverage on my thumb (and the heat generated by it) caused the lather to evaporate in that spot but in the "main" coverage areas it was on the whole overhydrated.

I'm hoping someone can dissect this and it becomes a useful learning tool. If not, at least there are some cool pictures.

 

[celestino]

Too me, it doesn't look over-saturated, but under-loaded. You just may have very hard water in your area and you may need to load more than 1 minute, with your EJ badger.
Your badger brush doesn't seem to be picking up enough soap during the loading process and that is why the lather differs to when you use your boar brush.
Try a good 2-Band badger with great backbone to see if there is a difference. I can almost guarantee it will.
Best of luck and keep us posted.

 

[AvariCe]

To be honest I'd have stopped at the 2 minute mark, splashed some water on my face, scooped some lather off the bowl with the brush and finished the lathering on my face. Other than that, I'd have added a few drops of water here and there.

 

[PMT]

Nice!

 

[Mickey Oberman]

I don't know if this will cure your problem but this is what I do that always results in a rich, long lasting lather.

I presoak brush and soap as you do. I then watch the news and weather on the internet.
Then I empty the soapy liquid from the soap bowl into a little espresso cup.
I then vigorously shake as much water as I can from the brush and attack the soap with it until I think it has enough.
Then to my heated Mickey Lather Bowl and I swirl and pump until I feel it needs more water. I use the soapy water I have saved in the cup instead of fresh tap water.
I continue swirling and pumping and adding the occasional drop of soapy water as needed until the lather is as I like it.
The only soap and I have tried quite a few, that does not respond to this treatment, is Wilkinson's as it nears the end of the supply in its soap bowl. All others without exception are 'good to the last drop'.

I feel the use of the soapy water is the reason for my success.

 

[keller]

Too me, it doesn't look over-saturated, but under-loaded.

How are you able to tell that it's under loaded by looking at the lather? Or are you mainly referring to the brush looking under loaded? What I've always thought is that if your peaks are falling over, you are over-saturated, especially when there's already a lot of lather built up in the brush and bowl. It would be helpful for me to be able to make that distinction.

Then I empty the soapy liquid from the soap bowl into a little espresso cup.

I use the soapy water I have saved in the cup instead of fresh tap water.

I like this idea. It makes a lot of sense to me. It's similar to the technique of dribbling some of the excess soap water into the bowl before starting to build lather there. Your technique is another one for me to try. I've also got to try out the baking soda technique mentioned in the other thread. Will try both this week and see how it goes! Thanks for the tips everyone!

 

[p38thadl]

I've been playing with the wet brush method, myself. In the past, I've had a badger brush hold water in the knot and kill lather, too. And I have hard water. Unlike you, I have not combined the experiences simultaneously! I would label what you have described as "broken lather," by analogy to "broken soup" -- when the tomato doesn't mix with the milk.

You could blame it on the water. Positive mineral ions sequester the useful fatty acid component of the soap. (I'd try a splash of vinegar rather than baking soda.) Water quality aside, I am confident you can totally whip the brush part, add more product, and succeed. I just can't tell you exactly how, other than to think of the ideal protolather as an aqueous solution with as much soap as it can carry without turning the corner and becoming more a liquid soap that has water in it, such as would be obtained by the dry brush method.

I have reached a few conclusions from my own trials. Like you, I let the brush dump some water first, good call there. Furthermore, time on puck, number of swirls, whatever, are not a valid measure of soap in solution. I look for the soap to start sudsing at the brush tip, indicating that the free water in the brush is gone. Maybe you have to splay the badger bristles to release water more deliberately in small increments. (Is that what they mean by "poor flow-through"?)

And lather peaks don't equate to cushion. Even if it looks the same, dry brush lather isn't as airy for me. I had to feel it between my hands to believe it.

 

[diehardmason]

And I thought I was confused before that ^^^!! Lol.

 

[keller]

p38thadl, that is some very scientific stuff. I do agree that timing or counting swirls isn't a good measure, though it does work for some people once they know their products and can replicate their technique with minimal variation. It's probably true that my EJ doesn't pick up enough product. I don't know whether that's due to 1) age of the brush, 2) the brush starting off too wet and being floppy while swirling on the puck, or 3) just because it relatively doesn't have much backbone.

I tried something different yesterday using my Simpson Colonel. I started out with a moderately drier brush and added some backing soda to my soaking water at the suggestion of another member, Blade4vor. What I got was probably the slickest, creamiest lather I've ever built! Thank you Blade for the suggestion! I think I have to credit the baking soda here because I've tried the same thing with my Simpson on a Tabac puck before and got much worse results. I may try the baking soda method with my EJ and see what happens. If I'm still getting sub-par lather, I've gotta figure out what to do with that brush. I don't even know if it's worth giving away as a PIF at this point.

 

[p38thadl]

Baking soda is the hard water cure that doesn't kill lather, which may be why you find it in the soap ingredients sometimes. I think it does more than that, too, as a foaming agent and hair softener. I use it to shave with ordinary soap. I just didn't find it as effective. Citric acid is probably the best.

 

[rdeakle]

The struggle is real.

I also have hard water, and you have to load 2-3x what you would normally think. I've found that some products take a bit more work to get good lather with, while some are very difficult no matter what you do, and some work fine. Its just a matter figuring it out. Do a couple of test lathers using more product, less product, more water, less water and see if you can dial it in. You can also try using distilled water to see if its your technique or your tap water.

Good luck.

 

[p38thadl]

Despite the brush problem, I believe we're onto something greater than more product. While the wet brush method is famously sloppy, and starts with a seeming excess of water, I believe what makes the end product lather distinctive is LESS water per unit volume. With our hard water cations taking out the fatty acid, they leave more free alkali in solution. The method itself makes tolerable soaps that I found too burning.

And then, physically, I think the bubbles may be constructed differently in wet-brush lather. If you add the water last, as in the dry brush method, wouldn't that leave more water on the OUTSIDE of the bubble? Whereas, if you add the water first, it has an equal shot at being inside as out. Thus the colorless sheen: refractive effects cancelling out.

With a nice, gentle soap (Stirling), and a dry brush, I can carelessly whip up slick, yogurt-y lather and allow myself the freedom to shave again on slick residue after a proper stroke. But I can do things with the cushion-y wet-brush lather that I couldn't before, like trenching that bumpy spot in the corner of my jaw. It's less blade contact overall, and I'm shaving deeper, more safely as a result. I'm reaching for the higher-profile cutting heads more.

 

[keller]

You can also try using distilled water to see if its your technique or your tap water.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing for the past month (using distilled). This thread was mainly an experimentation ground after some discussion in the other thread. I have no problems with distilled water nor my boar, just my badgers giving me problems in non-distilled water. That is until this morning...

Despite the brush problem, I believe we're onto something greater than more product.

While the science is completely beyond me, after this morning I firmly believe it's not the brush at all and it is in fact the water (and likely to an extent the method of starting drier or wetter). I had a shave this morning - skipped the distilled water and was determined to get something nice going with tap + baking soda. HUGE SUCCESS. Added about half a teaspoon to my mug that the brush was soaking in and added about a teaspoon to my filled sink. I used my EJ to see if I can get it working properly (afterall it does have its following). I wish I took pictures.

I started with a drier brush (gave it probably 6-7 vigorous shakes to really drain the excess out) and went to town on the puck. It actually lathered a lot quicker than I was expecting it to and I actually overloaded the brush with product! I was getting creamy peaks at the loading stage, which has never happened in my 5 years of wet shaving. Once I got to building the lather the brush just exploded after a few dips in the sink. It was insane! I'd never seen the brush so bloomed and expanded before and the slickness was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I only shave 2 passes + clean-up due to my sensitive skin, but if I was a 3-4 pass shaver, there would have easily been enough lather there. Normally on my second lathering the lather would start to dissipate quite quickly and have a problem if my face was moist but this time it just persisted. Absolutely unreal. Baking soda is my best friend as of this morning!

 

[EL Alamein]

By all means use what works. If you ever want to experiment without the Baking Soda try the method in this thread:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/340483-Lathering-MWF-with-hard-water-my-method

The last post in the thread explains the method.

Chris

 

[p38thadl]

Chris, that link is essentially an example of a "more product" solution. Soap seems a poor softening agent to me because it exchanges its lye component for the calcium and whatnot. If the soap has some buffering agents as well, okay, maybe. I've shaved comfortably enough with my Stirling, but like the OP, feeling myself "sensitive" and gravitating toward a 2-pass shave. Don't try that with some cheap stuff like Williams, cause you'll burn your face off.

 

[EL Alamein]

Chris, that link is essentially an example of a "more product" solution. Soap seems a poor softening agent to me because it exchanges its lye component for the calcium and whatnot. If the soap has some buffering agents as well, okay, maybe. I've shaved comfortably enough with my Stirling, but like the OP, feeling myself "sensitive" and gravitating toward a 2-pass shave. Don't try that with some cheap stuff like Williams, cause you'll burn your face off.

Thad, to an extent, agreed. I suspect a user will actually use less product than most "more product" threads imply (I know I did) but still more than a straight face lather. And nothing beats a softener. That said, most have reported this will work with most soaps.

Just another road to Rome.

Best,
Chris

 

[p38thadl]

Chemistry is my worst subject. I don't even know what's burning me now, after trying to research it online. My "free alkali" explanation doesn't seem to hold water; one book said that it would be a good thing, in hard water! I can only say that when I try that method with the glycerine soap that usually burns me, it still burns me.

 

[mjsanta83]

JMJ -

I know someone on here already said it but...distilled water. I put some in a mug and microwave it for about 15 seconds. Then I soak my brush in that while I shower and then ONLY use that water to make the lather.

Hope that helps!

YBIC
Mike

 

[p38thadl]

Ever try rainwater? I know right where I could put a mug, under a leaky gutter, now that I think about it. Or scoop up some snow!