Yesterday I was bored and decided to try and scent a few pucks of VDH. I melted two, with the new fragrance in my shave bowl, which is rather small. When it was ready to use, I couldn't build a lather because all of the pre-lather kept spilling out the sides and into the sink, and I mean ALL of it. I spooned out about a 1/4 of the soap, and pressed it into another bowl. As soon as I removed the extra soap, I was getting a great lather. So this raised an important question for me. I love the look of a nice wooden soap bowl, but a fresh one is filled to the brim with soap, how the hell do you generate a nice lather with it?
I'm overflowing!
- Thread starter MikeyAces
- Start date
If I'm using soap in a bowl, C&E Sandalwood, I just use my brush to pick up some soap build the lather in another bowl. If I need to reload the brush I'll hold the wooden bowl over my lather bowl so any excess falls in to it.
To answer your question, I don't think you can generate a nice lather with one of the wooden bowls. Just as you said, all the pre-lather is spilling out all over the place and not contained.
I always transfer my shaving soap to a container with wide and deep walls, preferably an apothecary style mug. This way you can really go to town on the puck surface generating a good pre-lather and it will all stay contained within the mug. I honestly don't know how people use the wooden bowls or other soap containers where the top surface of the soap is flush with the rim of the bowl...no room for pre-lather.
I always transfer my shaving soap to a container with wide and deep walls, preferably an apothecary style mug. This way you can really go to town on the puck surface generating a good pre-lather and it will all stay contained within the mug. I honestly don't know how people use the wooden bowls or other soap containers where the top surface of the soap is flush with the rim of the bowl...no room for pre-lather.
I have a couple of soaps with this problem. What I do is take a my brush and shake out most of the water until it is relatively dry and load it up on the soap. Then I lather on my face or in a bowl and add water as I go. This way I don't have lather going everywhere from my wooden soap bowl.
Face Lather.
No extra bowls to clean up to boot.
No extra bowls to clean up to boot.
Trying to make lather on a puck is very inconsistent and wastes masses of soap. As well as being uber messy.
I'd forget all that prelather stuff, it's unnecessary to make and then waste that stuff to get good lather. Load up soap onto a damp brush til you've got a paste and try making lather on your face or in another bowl.
I'd forget all that prelather stuff, it's unnecessary to make and then waste that stuff to get good lather. Load up soap onto a damp brush til you've got a paste and try making lather on your face or in another bowl.
I accidentally got a really good lather really fast this morning. My brush was wetter than normal so i ended up with a lot of really wet lather running over the side of the wooden bowl (gentlemens best) so i scraped that wet lather off my brush into my lather bowl then went back to the soap with the now drier brush and when i whipped the two together i had a bowl full of lather in just about 20 seconds.
When I am using a bowl, I might have a little pre-lather on the edge of the bowl, but generally, most of it is on my brush, not spilling over the sides. I am careful not to use a brush that is too wet and I don't mash the brush or press down on the soap. Once my brush is loaded, I face lather.
Of course, as the soap puck is used up, there is more room in the bowl for pre-lather and less spillage. YMMV.
I have my MWF in a wooden bowl, about even with the rim. Pre-lather doesn't concern me anyway as it has no business in my lather. Down the sink it goes. If you've got the right brush wetness you shouldn't make much of the really foamy useless stuff anyway.
+1 on load the brush and face lather ! !
"Pre-lather" is a fancy name for "soap".
The soap you should be using should be basically a paste in the brush, not the bubbles and foam that come off the puck when you first put the brush to it. Then you work that paste into your final lather either on your face or in the bowl. Sure they'll be some foam from the loading of the brush involved.
Anyway... I don't think he's talking about losing "usable" soap. You should be able to load up your brush without any container at all.
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