When I first started out in wet shaving I used to bowl lather mostly creams. Kept on doing this for a year or so but got tired of the extra gear that was needed, a.k.a. a bowl. Furthermore it made the simple act of creating a lather, a bit complicated imho.
Then I discovered face lathering and did that for over 15 years and it worked fine. At some point I started to develop 'brush rash' for no particular reason so I had to find a way to somehow limit my brush-to-face-time.
That's when I discovered palm lathering where you basically build the lather in your palm, clean your hand and apply the lather to your face with the loaded brush using only painting strokes (because you already have a finished lather on the brush).
With this technique I can now make the best lather I've ever made. The big advantage is that you can really fine-tune your lather because you can feel the slickness with you fingers. There's lots of feedback that I never got with either bowl or face lathering. And it doesn't matter whether I use a hard soap or cream, it all works great with the palm lathering technique I described.
So there you have it, my road to palm lathering.
Then I discovered face lathering and did that for over 15 years and it worked fine. At some point I started to develop 'brush rash' for no particular reason so I had to find a way to somehow limit my brush-to-face-time.
That's when I discovered palm lathering where you basically build the lather in your palm, clean your hand and apply the lather to your face with the loaded brush using only painting strokes (because you already have a finished lather on the brush).
With this technique I can now make the best lather I've ever made. The big advantage is that you can really fine-tune your lather because you can feel the slickness with you fingers. There's lots of feedback that I never got with either bowl or face lathering. And it doesn't matter whether I use a hard soap or cream, it all works great with the palm lathering technique I described.
So there you have it, my road to palm lathering.