When you bowl lather a puck of soap, how wet is your brush? Is it soaking wet or just moist? If you start off moist, I know you can add water later if needed. What do you do?
So your brush after 3 shakes would be just damp I guess.Soak in sink for 30 seconds. Shake out excess water, 3 shakes. Swirl brush on moist puck, 30 seconds, building lather. Apply to wet face, work it around. Shave.
I go for right between damp and wet...So your brush after 3 shakes would be just damp I guess.
It's a real consideration for me. I find that when the brush is too dry it takes waaaaay longer to load the brush. On the other hand, if it's too wet you end up with a bit of a mess on the puck (no biggie) and lather that's too thin.
I try to leave the perfect amount of water in the brush so I don't have to add more - just because. For my brushes that's two shakes straight up and down, not a whipping motion.
All of that is silly, of course. It usually takes me 4-5 seconds to load the brush, and if it takes 25 seconds I promise I have lost nothing valuable for the extra 20 seconds. It's easy to add a little water, and I often do. When the lather is a little thin I just use it to get some experience with thinner lather.
But that's just my process. It hardly matters as long as you load the amount of soap you like and end up with the lather you like.
So you use more of a moist brush than a wet one. Like you said, you can always add a little water if needed.I found out for myself that squeezing or flicking water out might save your lather from being to foamy.
I tried the Marco method of leaving a lot of water in the brush but it depends on amount of soap in bowl or how long you load the brush from the puck.
I use a lot of different soaps because I enjoy variety & some soaps react very differently when generating lather because they are formulated with different ingredients and you could ended up fighting the lather to often with to wet a brush for my desires of a nice lather.
The best way I found is squeeze excess water from brush and swirl and add water when a paste forms to control the lather you enjoy and have been using this method for years now. Add a few drops by hand or a mister(my preferred methods) I use to just dip my brush tips in the water(still do sometimes) but if I'm half a sleep I add a little to much sometimes and will fight the lather making. Once you get your method established it becomes very easy and fast and very enjoyable IMO. I always like to add my lather to a wet face also. You can always add a few drops to the brush if lather is to dry on your face, to dry is not good either.
IMCDB on Youtube has some excellent tutorials on making lather and there is no one better than Chris for making lather, he makes it look so very easy also IMO.
I learn sometimes better by watching or observing then apply from the experienced person than reading about it.
Have some great shaves!
This is me too- although I really don't mind it when it does drip down. I know it's going to be as slick as possible at that point if the soap is any good.As wet as it can be without dripping. I like a lather that doesn't run down my neck but comes close.
Sounds like you are using your soap like a shave stick. That's another way of doing it.so here's a little different approach.
i pre-lather the face using bar of glycerin soap and whichever brush.
rinse out the brush, lightly rinse the face.
this effectively hydrates the brush.
then i'll squeeze any excess water from the brush and proceed to lather whatever shave soap or cream.
for me, this seems to give a little thicker lather; i can always add a drop or two of water.
Of course, YMMV!
Exactly. Preps both whiskers and brush at same time. Pennies, cheaper and less greasy than shave oil.Sounds like you are using your soap like a shave stick. That's another way of doing it.