Outstanding photos and description!! 
Lathering with a shave stick(to help someone out)
- Thread starter APBinNCA
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- #22
Thank you very much for taking the time read this.Outstanding photos and description!!
So there it is, that's the amount of lather that I think of as a minimum to provide good protection and slickness. I hope this shows why getting enough proto lather at the beginning is so important and I only did two water additions so this is still doable every day. I think the resulting lather speaks for itself, it accomplishes the goal of being just short of dripping wet without loosing skin protection. This is only possible by loading enough soap, a merely wet lather is just a short cut that is going to cost you later in skin irritation. Lather like this almost erases any blade feel present, like little ball bearings between the blade and your face. Poor lather may glide well and fool you into thinking that everything is fine, but will not protect you from the blade edge.
I hope this is helpful to somebody. This is not intended as a comprehensive lathering tutorial and I have omitted some steps as my primary objective is to demonstrate the process of generating a proto lather, the lathering steps are just thrown in extras and assume that the reader knows how to add water and integrate it.
Oh heck freaking yeah. Thats the way ah ha, ah ha, I like it!
Whenever folks are having issues whipping up a lather for the first time, and its looking all foamy, I always give the advice of going for a creamy yogurt consistency, and show them a picture of what that looks like in a lather bowl.
However, what you are covering more specifically, is getting to a proper lather, using the facial lathering technique. And I think you did a absolutely beautiful job, of demonstrating how to do it. The pictures were so good, the lather even made me hungry.
And BTW, I love the Speick shave stick, smells like a kitchen spice cabinet, and provides a great lather on my face, and I work it in with my Maseto Avatar 30mm knot ST badger brush, works wonders. Great post buddy, I love it!
I enjoy using sticks so much that now, when I use a soap puck, I remove the dry puck from the mug, bowl, or other container, and rub it on my wet face in the style of a stick. It makes every soap perform wonderfully, even those pucks which I previously struggled to lather. That change is the biggest recent improvement I have made in my shaving.
Wet face, wet shave stick, wet brush. Rub shave stick on face, brush on face. Adjust from there.
I don't quite understand why you are using a stick like that in the first place. @Tillerman explains the process perfectly. The beauty of a shave stick is its simplicity of use.
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- #27
It's just because I wasn't shaving and wanted to show how much soap should be in the brush before building the lather. The point being that if you load too lightly and over hydrate that, you have no protection just wet slickness. Maybe I should have taken one picture of the brush with a load of lather and said, at least this much and been done with it. I didn't and I can't edit it now, I acknowledged that this was flawed a couple posts up.
Ahhh! The lightbulb just went on for me.
When I use a shave stick, my facial area is more than 2x the size of one of my palms. There's no way that I would be able to get enough product rubbed onto a hand to be able to generate the normal lather volume that I get face lathering. But I do appreciate your demonstration post.... and anyone else that also posts pictorials.
I have to add that I have used a shave stick less than a dozen times, but I have fallen in love with the process. Have a Stirling tuxedo that I didn't care for for bowl lathering, but works great on my face. Can't wait to get a variety of sticks.
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- #30
The Lea stick, I think La Toja is the same, is the easiest thing I have lathered! Rubbing a Haslinger puck on my face would be a close second.
Thanks
My process is rubbing the stick on my face then lathering with a dampish brush until my face is covered then dip my brush in water and lather until I get the desired hydration. I prefer a rather wet but not runny lather. As I shave the lather will begin drying a bit and I dip and keep it where I like. Easy, quick and effective. I shave with straight razors and slickness is paramount - I find thickness of the lather to be detrimental.It's just because I wasn't shaving and wanted to show how much soap should be in the brush before building the lather. The point being that if you load too lightly and over hydrate that, you have no protection just wet slickness. Maybe I should have taken one picture of the brush with a load of lather and said, at least this much and been done with it. I didn't and I can't edit it now, I acknowledged that this was flawed a couple posts up.
