soap/water proportions?

[sanfranciscian]

couple of weeks in to this new sport, i have only used bigelow cream til now with outstanding results, so today i tried my first soap lather and did not do so well. I used vdh select so probably not the finest stuff but have been led to believe it was usable. what i ended up with was gobs of light and airy with not a lot of body. here was my routine, put brush in bowl of hot water to soak and poured some of same on top of soap and headed in to the shower. when i got out i emptied bowl and just let excess water run off of brush then poured water off of soap and gave it a good whirl around the soap until i had a good amount of lather on brush and took it to the bowl and had at it. which did whip up a bunch of light and airy. so where did i go wrong. cheap soap? too much water in brush? let soap soak too long in hot water? was able to get off a shave with this stuff but not nearly as comfortable as the cream. maybe this belongs in the newbie section but i thought i would come to you soap guys direct. thanks for any insight.

Ian

 

[Klopstick]

For most soaps you need a rather dry brush or you won't pick up enough product. Sounds like you need to shake out the brush after soaking it and then soap it up. For glycerin soaps especially, a drier brush seems to do better. You should be getting a sort of sticky cream on the top of the soap and on the brush, not lighter lather or suds. Then you add a bit of water at a time in your bowl (or on your face) to get the lather to happen.

Soap is cheap, so go back and make a few tries at it until it seems right. It will pay off!

 

[thoughtcriminal]

Take a good look at the Glycerin Soap Tutorial. My VDH lather was sub par before using those techniques.
Keep at it and good luck

 

[Bald_and_Hairy]

I'd have to agree, try less water. Maybe even give the brush a squeeze. I really run the brush around on the soap for a while like 20-30 seconds. I get a lot of soap, enough for a 3 pass shave. VDH may be inexpensive but it's one of my favorite soaps. Always been a goto soap when all else fails. Gives a great lather and lubrication for me. YMMV.

 

[sanfranciscian]

thanks guys, i did just try the drier method and bingo rich and creamy, hope you all have a wonderful day, hopefully with the ones you love!

 

[Leche]

VDH works fine and follow what those guys are saying as you are using too much water. On a side note, in my experience, you don't need to soak any non triple milled soap with virtually any brush. Depending on your brush you may want to put hot water on top of a triple milled puck but with a boar or badger with backbone, this too is unnecessary.

 

[ShaveAddict]

I prefer using more water than not enough, otherwise you end up whit dry lather.
I let soak my brush for 5 minutes after i get it out without shaking it or squeezing it and start to lather my soap.
Of course the first lather you will get will be very liquid but you let that first lather go out of the bowl.
Once that liquid lather is out, you start to get a good creamy lather.