While showering my brush is soaking and add a little water to my soap to moisten the soap. Curious what others do to prep their soaps or do you wait to load it with the brush?
I run hot water over my brush for about ten seconds. TWO light shakes for the brush and then it attacks a DRY cake of Williams. Swirl on soap for about another 15 seconds. I have no need for a pre-shave ritual. Rich and thick lather.
I shave in the shower so the first thing is filling a cup with warm water and soak the brush . Throw a few drops of water on my shave soap and let it all soak until the showers over with then I shave at the end.
I generally use hard(ish) tallow soaps,* so I flood the puck with warm water for a minute or so. That's it. Then I start loading the brush. (I use boar brushes -- usually the Omega 10049 -- and soak the brush in warm water for the same length of time.)
* Mike's, MWF, Arko -- not the hardest of the hard. I also occasionally use D.R. Harris -- hard, period -- which I will soak for a longer time.
I have recently adopted a new soap prep. Until now I have just wet my brush with distilled water and went to town on a dry cake of soap.
The new prep is to pour scalding hot water (from the tap) onto the cake of soap to cover it completely and fill up to the brim of the wooden bowl (I use an old school English hard soap - Taylor's old formula lavender) and I let it soak while I shower. When ready to shave I pour that water off into a scuttle and use that soapy water to hydrate my dry brush and start making a lather by swirling it VERY lightly on the cake to pick up just a slight amount of the melted soap on top. I then start to lather with it until I have a thick rich, extremely slick and protective lather. Works like a charm. The trick is NOT to add more STRAIGHT tap water. The reason being, in, my case, is that whatever they treat the water with around here makes the lather gummy. It's hard water around here and that's why I have been using distilled for years because it makes a much more slick and protective lather.
I *think* the poured off water is softened due to it being soap filled and that just makes that lather all the more better. In conjunction the soap I pick up from the surface of the cake is melted and pretty near completely hydrated so no unmelted soap is in the lather (something I, again *think*, is significant for mildness) and therefore it is much more mild on the skin.
One should adapt this to one's own situation as water varies in every municipality but I think this technique could help some gents to produce that thick rich lather that may otherwise elude them.
I have tried this on a small variety of soaps including Tabac and it works marvelously.