New to Safety Razor Questions!

[Panzerschwein]

Glad to hear you're finding suitable products. I just hope it's not the "Negroni's" talking...
The Proraso "White" line also contains an after-shave balm for sensitive skin. If you experience post-shave dryness or tightness, you may want to consider it.

Thank you! I bought a bottle of Nivea post-shave balm and it does appear to be working well. This Italian anti-irritating cream appears to be 100% compatible with my face. Even nefore Negronis, it doesn’t sting or irritate at all!

 

[FireDragon76]

Sorry it didn't go so well the first time. It could be the hard water. I looked back in my records, and I had 76 shaves with Barbasol and Gillette Foamy before starting with Williams. By then, I'd refined my razor technique so I got few nicks. I count the tiniest bit of blood as a nick. If it runs a bit, it's a weeper. I did feel some stinging when I used a little aftershave. I recorded "great shave" for my first shave with Williams. I think I lathered in a bowl then. Mug lathering might work for you. It's worth a try. It will use more soap, but it will still be inexpensive.

The flaps on Van der Hagen razors do have a tendency to open a bit when they are new. Make sure to tighten them snugly and check the thing at the end of the handle while shaving.

I suggest trying mug lathering the next time. If it works, press on. If not, rinse your face and use the Barbasol. After that, try bowl lathering. As a last resort, you can cover the puck in warm water for about 15 minutes before starting to shave. Dump the water out before starting. This is called blooming. You should only need to do this once to hydrate the puck.

I started getting great results with Williams when I was shaving infrequently using a Gillette Guard. I would just shave 1-3 a week before going to church or to a special event. I kept the Williams in a ramican and it absorbed water over time and just turned mushy, but it lathered great and was slick enough to use with my Guard.

 

[ShaverAZ]

Thank you!! I ordered three pucks of the William’s Mug soap from Amazon, along with this brush:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016I77CJA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

It apparantly is a synthetic badger’s hair brush, and has good reviews on Amazon. It was just $9 so if it’s no good, not a huge loss by no means. I got a wide mouth short coffee cup at Target, going to try that out. I’d love any and all tips for producing a lather and how to apply it!! Thanks!!

Brushes are brushes. Whether horsehair, boar, badger or synthetic, they will all provide a great lather once you develop your technique. I began decades ago with Grandpa's old Ever Ready 100T Boar brush (around 100 years old today). Scruffy-looking, but it lathers as well as a $100 Badger brush. Wishing to preserve it for posterity, I got a cheap Chinese Badger brush with plain wooden handle. Don't forget, badgers abound in China to the point of being agricultural pests. The Chinese eat them, too, so nothing is wasted. The $4 Chinese Badger brush is still among my favorites. After properly breaking it in, it lathers as well as any of my better brushes. There's also a blue handle brush from an E-Bay seller who calls it badger, but it's synthetic. It's small, too, but it works every bit as well as my spendier Stirling or WCS synthetics.
Avoid becoming a brush snob or even associating with them. Get what works for you - cheap is often best. Williams Puck soap - old fashioned hard puck that lathers like crazy. You can even grate it and mix it with other soaps to build your own custom blend.
The Van der Weishi is a solid razor & works great with Astra SP blades. Someday for variety you may want to look around at more razors. Take a look on E-Bay and Etsy for any of a number of Gillette vintage razors. The older (pre 1960) Techs will give you the best shave of your life, and work great with a variety of blades. Prices can be astonishingly low, (especially considering that these are razors made of brass and not Zamak). The older Super Speeds are in my weekly razor rotation and are always on the list of Best Shave of the Week.
Be careful, lest your paycheck disappear down the rabbit hole in pursuit of spendy shaving gear.

 

[razorboi]

Brushes are brushes. Whether horsehair, boar, badger or synthetic, they will all provide a great lather once you develop your technique...Don't forget, badgers abound in China to the point of being agricultural pests. The Chinese eat them, too, so nothing is wasted. The $4 Chinese Badger brush is still among my favorites. After properly breaking it in, it lathers as well as any of my better brushes.

Brushes are brushes?
It seems to me you fail to credit the different qualities of various types of brushes that make them desirable. A brush's ability to generate a lather is but one quality.
By your cursory analysis, perhaps he should save even more money and just lather with a cheap paint brush!
May we expect your next recommendation to start with "Soaps are soaps..."?

So any road, I'm really replying to post the following:
Wild badgers are not a common source for brush production in China.
Badgers are primarily farmed there for that purpose.
Nor do they abound.
Recently, the exploitation of the hog badger for bush-meat has been described as "unsustainable" by researchers, and the ferret badger is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, due to hunting and habitat destruction.
In fact, populations are only known to be plentiful in China's "reserve" forests.
Aside from a few prestige animals, such as the Giant Panda, the Chinese are not known for prudent stewardship of their wild species, with increasing numbers of game animal populations becoming stressed in recent years by hunting, illegal poaching, deforestation, pollution, &etc.
Most recently, the common Asian badger (meles leucurus) has been added to the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species as of 2016.
Currently there are fifty-five species of mammals listed as endangered or critically endangered in China, and some, it is understood, will inevitably go extinct. Others already have, so they're no longer on the list.
On the other hand, Plisson have a licence from the French government to trap wild badger in that country, where it is still considered a pest. Thus, Plisson may be unique in being the only company to-day that uses non-chinese badger bristle in its brushes.
PETA claim the Chinese submit badgers to inhuman treatment, such as clubbing them with improvised tools (e.g. a broken chair leg), and inexpertly slitting their throats, leaving them to die a slow, agonising death.
Of course it could be true, probably is, but PETA's reputation for lack of candour precedes them like a bad smell...

 

[ShaverAZ]

A brush's ability to generate lather is its' sole quality, IMO. I haven't found it necessary to overthink it or to extrapolate the idea to extend to 'soap is soap'. You are free, though, to stand on whatever height of soapbox you desire.

 

[RayClem]

A brush's ability to generate lather is its' sole quality, IMO. I haven't found it necessary to overthink it or to extrapolate the idea to extend to 'soap is soap'. You are free, though, to stand on whatever height of soapbox you desire.

Perhaps for you, the ability of a brush to generate later is its sole quality, but for me, that is only part of the equation. I have found some brushes that do not generate a great lather because they are not sufficiently dense.

I have very sensitive skin, so much so that I get brush burn if I face lather. I cannot stand scritch or scrub in a brush. Thus, I bowl lather and paint on the lather to minimize the contact time of the brush on my face. I have a brush with a synthetic boss knot, but it is too scrubby for my liking, so I only use it when I travel. I have tried cheap badger brushes, but they feel like I am sticking needles into my face. Thus, not every brush is a good brush, at least for me. However, I have badger, boar, horse hair, and synthetic brushes that do work for me, in spite of my sensitive skin.

The performance of a brush, however, is not necessarily related to cost. I have an Omaga 10098 boar that is well broken in. It cost less than $15, but it is as soft on the face as premium silvertip brushes or the softest synthetic knots.