This could go in soaps or creams I guess, and maybe "General" too. I put it heAr as I use mostly soaps. If it's in the wrong forum, Mods please move as required.
Lately, over the past 3 weeks, I've gotten kind of slack with paying attention to detail when building a lather and the quality of lather I build has slowly been dropping off. Been kind of busy lately so rather than fix the issue I put up with it and the shaves were less than great, to say the least.
This morning I decided I'd had enough crappy shaves so before I got a shower, I studied, read, watched videos and basically, as the title said, went back to basics. Then I got out a brush, my onion soup bowl I use to build the lather in and a tub of MBs soap. I wet the top of the soap, poured off the excess and let it sit while I soaked the brush for about 30 seconds. I gave the brush a couple of good shakes and then squeezed it. I swirled the brush on the soap for maybe 15 seconds and while doing that squished the brush down on the soap a few times.
Now brush to the bowl and swirled it for 15 seconds. Put in ~ 1/4 tsp of water. Swirled another 15 seconds, another 1/4 tsp of water. Repeat, repeat and repeated again and followed that with maybe another 30 seconds of swirling. If you're counting, this is now 1-1/4 tsp of water which is a lot more than I'd been using lately and also swirled and worked the lather longer than I have been (or for that matter, ever have me-thinks).
What resulted was the best, slickest, most voluminous lather I've ever had, and probably enough of it to shave a dog. That resulted in one of the best shaves I've ever had, but there may be another factor that lead to that result.
I built the lather prior to a shower and allowed it to sit. Then when I got out of the shower, it was only seconds and I had lather to my face, while still very wet and no time to dry out somewhat, as happens when I used to build the lather after getting out.
What's the moral to this story? I see there's two:
Lately, over the past 3 weeks, I've gotten kind of slack with paying attention to detail when building a lather and the quality of lather I build has slowly been dropping off. Been kind of busy lately so rather than fix the issue I put up with it and the shaves were less than great, to say the least.
This morning I decided I'd had enough crappy shaves so before I got a shower, I studied, read, watched videos and basically, as the title said, went back to basics. Then I got out a brush, my onion soup bowl I use to build the lather in and a tub of MBs soap. I wet the top of the soap, poured off the excess and let it sit while I soaked the brush for about 30 seconds. I gave the brush a couple of good shakes and then squeezed it. I swirled the brush on the soap for maybe 15 seconds and while doing that squished the brush down on the soap a few times.
Now brush to the bowl and swirled it for 15 seconds. Put in ~ 1/4 tsp of water. Swirled another 15 seconds, another 1/4 tsp of water. Repeat, repeat and repeated again and followed that with maybe another 30 seconds of swirling. If you're counting, this is now 1-1/4 tsp of water which is a lot more than I'd been using lately and also swirled and worked the lather longer than I have been (or for that matter, ever have me-thinks).
What resulted was the best, slickest, most voluminous lather I've ever had, and probably enough of it to shave a dog. That resulted in one of the best shaves I've ever had, but there may be another factor that lead to that result.
I built the lather prior to a shower and allowed it to sit. Then when I got out of the shower, it was only seconds and I had lather to my face, while still very wet and no time to dry out somewhat, as happens when I used to build the lather after getting out.
What's the moral to this story? I see there's two:
- No matter how set you are in your ways of doing something, don't be afraid to change. There may be a better way.
- If things aren't quite right, don't be afraid to go back to basics and start fresh to find out where you've been going wrong. and don't be afraid to practice, practice, PRACTICE.
electric 
I left my brush soaking in a terracotta bowl from an old homemade (by someone else) shave soap and showered. I applies my T&H pso(yes I know I know but I bought it and I may as well use it!) and scrubbed at my Tabac bowl. I lathered in this Terracotta bowl and produced a great lather quickly. I did a 4 pass shave with this plactic torture device and had a dfs with no cuts and no irritation. I will of course throw away the bic as I'm sure 1 shave is all it's good for. This reminded my just how big a difference a good brush and great soap makes to having a great shave.
