Thoughts on successful lather

[MPruett]

After reading B&B for about a year and wetshaving for roughly the same amount of time, I've had a few revelations about how to successfully lather.

I've read the "how to lather MWF" type threads, and the "how to lather creams" threads. Basically they both come down to the same thing- you have to get the appropriate soap/water/air combo.

One revelation that I had was that it's a LOT easier across the board to really load up your brush, and get a thick foam working, and slowly add water, than to add too much water at the beginning.

This sounds rather obvious, but the thing is, if you're trying to regulate your water by leaving your brush wet, you don't have so much control over how much water you're dealing with relative to the amount of soap.


The other revelation that I had was that there's no real advantage to being stingy with the cream or soap. Generally speaking if my lather's too soapy, that's better than not soapy enough. It may be a little wasteful, but at least in my experience, the differences in latherability are a lot less pronounced if you use about the same amout of lather as maybe 1/3 of a ketchup packet, or a huge-*** lima bean, instead of the very small amounts recommended on here.

I've noticed that I haven't had an unpleasant shaving experience since I realized this a few months ago- before that, it was more of a crapshoot when switching creams, because I would be out of practice with that particular one, and would take a while to get the technique down. Now I just put more cream down, and it all seems to work better.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[kingfisher]

[Ed McMahon voice] You are correct, sir. [/Ed McMahon voice]


No question about it. I agree with you 100%. The other thing I have noticed is that if you take a little longer, and fully integrate each new amount of water before adding more, you get a much better final product.

 

[natchez]

+1

 

[JPM]

Good advice. And I find a puck of soap or a tub of cream seems to last forever, so what's the harm in using a bit extra?

 

[wakefieldma]

Totally agree-

 

[sodajerk]

100% agree!! I've temporarily given up of bowl lathering and build my lather on the soap so I can get the thickness and moisture better and faster. Great shaves now!! Good observation and advice! )

 

[waxwing23]

Well said Sir. You Nailed it.

 

[Compaq]

I agree here, nice observations!

About your adding more cream. I've found that if you add the cream in the brush (a little inside the middle of the brush), you'll get huge amounts of lather. I dare say I can divide my amount of added shaving cream by two. I've only tried this with bowl lathering, keep that in mind.

 

[unmodern]

I agree here, nice observations!

About your adding more cream. I've found that if you add the cream in the brush (a little inside the middle of the brush), you'll get huge amounts of lather. I dare say I can divide my amount of added shaving cream by two. I've only tried this with bowl lathering, keep that in mind.

I can back this up for facelathering, too. Sticking the cream directly inside the brush must expose it to an optimal amount of friction and moisture. I've been doing this with Musgo after seeing Mantic do it in a vid, and the resultant lather is phenomenal. For face-latherers this also obviates the need to dirty your hand spreading the lather.

 

[JMan424]

I can back this up for facelathering, too. Sticking the cream directly inside the brush must expose it to an optimal amount of friction and moisture. I've been doing this with Musgo after seeing Mantic do it in a vid, and the resultant lather is phenomenal. For face-latherers this also obviates the need to dirty your hand spreading the lather.

I face lather when I travel but use a scuttle at home (I'm hooked on the heat)

That said, I'll have to try "injecting" the cream into the brush then working it in the scuttle...

 

[closer]

One revelation that I had was that it's a LOT easier across the board to really load up your brush, and get a thick foam working, and slowly add water, than to add too much water at the beginning.
...
The other revelation that I had was that there's no real advantage to being stingy with the cream or soap. Generally speaking if my lather's too soapy, that's better than not soapy enough. It may be a little wasteful, but at least in my experience, the differences in latherability are a lot less pronounced if you use about the same amout of lather as maybe 1/3 of a ketchup packet, or a huge-*** lima bean, instead of the very small amounts recommended on here.

Agreed absolutely, on both counts. If you have too much water to begin with, the lather tends to splatter a bit. Its not an issue if you start with less water, and add more slowly.

I also use larger cream amounts. It hurts a bit when using really expensive creams, like SMN, or something. But usually, within the price range of the 3Ts, I use the equivalent of 2 almond size helpings. Especially if you buy tubs, those things last for a long time.

 

[MPruett]

One more thing that I do that I don't recall being mentioned in the tutorials is that I basically aim to make a good lather at every stage- cream alone, cream w/ a little water, and after each subsequent addition of water. The idea is that you won't get it right initially, so you just work it up until it's good to go.

This way, it's easier to tell when you have an adequate lather, and you'll also err on the side of too rich of lather instead of too thin.

The caveat is to not add more than a teaspoon worth at a time of water, and try to work it into a good lather between additions.

 

[michiganlover]

The other revelation that I had was that there's no real advantage to being stingy with the cream or soap. Generally speaking if my lather's too soapy, that's better than not soapy enough. It may be a little wasteful, but at least in my experience, the differences in latherability are a lot less pronounced if you use about the same amout of lather as maybe 1/3 of a ketchup packet, or a huge-*** lima bean, instead of the very small amounts recommended on here.

A huge +1

In general I think the people recommending the "snurdle" amount of shaving cream mean well, and this may indeed work for them, as they are experienced at making lather.

I don't however, feel that it works for most newbies.

I use at least an amount equal to two snurdles, and get great lather as a result.

I also feel that the "handful of swirls, and go" method of loading soap that is often demonstrated does a dis-service to newbies as well.

I load my brush for upwards of a minute, and get great results because of it.

 

[HIT]

Seems quite interesting.

Basically I think that you recommend to just DOUBLE IT UP!!! I ll try it at my tommorrow's shave

 

[Scissors]

Agree complete with the OP as well as those who say it's good practice to build what seems like a good lather at each stage. If it's thick and slick and shiny but you know you put in enough soap or cream that it could take more water (more defined as above, just a few drops), add them and whip it some more. At first I'll soften and lose its sheen, but given a bit more time, the shine will come back and the lather will thicken again.

As far as the claim that using so much soap or cream is wasteful goes—what if you could save your lather after a shave rather than just wash it down the drain? I bought a large shaving bowl with a lid recently and it occurred to me to see how well excess lather kept. In addition to what's left in the bowl, I squeeze the contents of my brush into it, cover the bowl, and leave it over night at room temperature. I've tried this with Nancy Boy cream and Haslinger and Kent/MWF soaps so far and had good results with the Nancy Boy and Haslinger; maybe it's a consequence of how much soap I used with the Haslinger, but I found a few drops of water helped increase the sheen on day two. Both needed some whipping to be revived, but not much compared to the effort required to build the original lather. Kent/MWF didn't keep; it just broke down into a fizzy mess that couldn't be restored, unfortunately.

Finally, I'm curious to know how much is "a lot." Maybe what looks like a lot of soap only seems like it, and the amount by weight removed from the cake isn't much; same with cream. And if you use soaps and creams with keepable lather, you aren't wasting any of what you use.

 

[HIT]

As far as the claim that using so much soap or cream is wasteful goes—what if you could save your lather after a shave rather than just wash it down the drain?

Absolutely definitely NOT

 

[MPruett]

I've had good enough luck with Col. Conk and MWF "saving" the lather. What I've done is just shoveled it back into the bowl/mug, and let it dry out completely. THen, later, when I put the preliminary water in with the soap, the old lather dissolves into the water, and I use that as my water for building my lather, until it runs out, then I use tap water.

Works as well as just rinsing it down the drain, although it's not really "saving" it as much as it's recycling the lather. I suppose I save a tiny bit of soap that way, although I'm not sure why- it takes me FOREVER, even with double-snurdles to go through a tube of cream or puck of soap. Like months.

 

[SiBurning]

Some good advice here, especially about making a good lather at all stages. Any decent cook knows there are some things that require you to add ingredients slowly and incorporate them completely before adding more. Salad dressing? Whipped egg whites? Doughs are even more complicated, where you often mix egg and flour into an impossibly stiff dough before adding any liquids, which is kind of what you're doing when you load the brush from a soap.

But when a thread has 100% agreement, someone has to play devil's advocate.

You don't need a luxuriously thick 4 pass Santa Clause foam to get a good shave. If you want the Santa Claus thing you probably do need to use a whole dollop. But I get good results with some creams using just a few flecks, or a few swirls from some soaps. The trick for me is to use more water and scrupulously avoid getting air into the mix. This is where the above advice is so important: you need to be very careful how you add the water. If you add water too quickly, or don't fully incorporate it, you end up with a bubbly mess which takes a lot of work to get rid of the bubbles, if you can fix it at all. Some additives are designed to stabilize a foam and won't let a bubbly mess get worked down into a decent lather, wet or foam. Also, some products work well diluted, others work better thick, so it takes some experimentation.

By the way, in [thread=96328]How many flecks in a snurdle? Or, What do you guys do with all that lather?[/thread] we figured out there's 73 flecks or 2 splurts in a snurdle, 2.2 snurdles in a dollop, and 6 dollops in a glob. We also came up with a dozen things you dollop guys can do with all that left over lather. Sorry, we didn't figure out how many flecks in a swirl.

So when you say to use twice as much, you're using a dollop.