To the soap ...

[xgunterx]

I jumped a hole in the air a while ago when my wife gave me the L'Occitane soap and bowl as a present.
But I was disappointed and frustrated about the performance of this soap. Whatever I tried, I just couldn't get any decent lather from it.
I tried at least 20 times with as many different techniques and angles to the problem, but is was still a no no.
I posted a thread inclusive some pictures about it (here).

Now just in another recent thread somebody stated that he couldn't understand that I got so disappointing results with this soap.
Because of this I went to the bathroom to try it again (lathering in my palm to simulate face lathering) and it was a decent lather!
Puzzled and thinking it was bare luck I tried two more times starting with more and less water with the same result.
I will try it again tomorrow on the face and see what happens.

Now, I don't know a lot from soaps (chemically) besides just the basics which are sometimes covered here, but is it possible that a soap has to settle in some way to get peak performance?

 

[xehupatl]

Well I'm not the expert (cue "I'm no fancy big city lawyer, but ..."), but it just looks like you're using some kind of cheap plastic supermarket boar or badger imitation brush. Get yourself a silvertip badger (doesn't have to be expensive) and you'll get great results with ANY soap.

EDIT: Cade is my favourite soap, get a brush that lets you appreciate it.

 

[Jim]

Your lather looks light and airy.

Load the brush with soap for much longer and add water in very small increments.

The goal is to load the brush with lather, not the bowl.

Read some of the stickies in the forum on lather making for more info.

 

[xgunterx]

Your lather looks light and airy.

Load the brush with soap for much longer and add water in very small increments.

The goal is to load the brush with lather, not the bowl.

Read some of the stickies in the forum on lather making for more info.

I normally don't bowl lather, it was just for the pics.
Really, I once pressed hard on the damp brush so the brush was really filled with soap and I still got that airy stuff.
I have Tabac, Palmolive, Woody's, P.160, Penhaligon's, T&H, TOBS, Speick, Irisch Moos, Floris, Olivia, and others and they all give me a good lather. It was just this one soap that didn't no matter what I tried.
It is now after I didn't touch the soap for several weeks that I get a decent lather. It isn't airy at all now. I really don't do anything different from what I was doing a few weeks ago, so I'm really thinking the soap settled (oxidizing??).

 

[vsp]

I jumped a hole in the air a while ago when my wife gave me the L'Occitane soap and bowl as a present.

You know, you could save a lot of money on the bowl by grating the soap into a container (there's a pictorial in the stickies on the soaps page)

 

[xgunterx]

You know, you could save a lot of money on the bowl by grating the soap into a container (there's a pictorial in the stickies on the soaps page)

This is the only bowl I own. All the rest of my soaps are in kitchenware and I do mill all my sticks (Palmolive, Speick and Irisch Moos).

 

[xgunterx]

8<
I really don't do anything different from what I was doing a few weeks ago, so I'm really thinking the soap settled (oxidizing??).

I just tried again, 5 swirls on the puck and a nice lather in the palm of my hand.
Same brush and the same procedure as for all my soaps.

 

[vsp]

I jumped a hole in the air a while ago when my wife gave me the L'Occitane soap and bowl as a present.

You know, you could save a lot of money on the bowl by grating the soap into a container (there's a pictorial in the stickies on the soaps page)

 

[Jim]

Try 50 swirls and report back-

 

[xgunterx]

Try 50 swirls and report back-

50 times? Oh boy, my right arm is not as trained anymore as when I was 13 and the hormones kicked in.

I only load for one pass and then reload.
The brush can't hold much more than that anyway.

It still remains strange that the lather improved a lot after I left the puck for a while.
Or it knew it would end up in the shower at one point.

 

[Jim]

Enjoy!

 

[xgunterx]

After leaving the puck alone in a ceramic container (I'm using the metal bowl to put my new blades is) for a few weeks I now used it again to shave. 5 secs on the puck were now enough to build a nice lather directly on the face.
It was a nice creamy lather and not the airy puff I got several weeks ago.
The lather was not as cushiony as some of my other soaps but that's ok since I get the closest shaves then and when you know this you can prepare yourself to it by using a smooth blade for example.

Final advice: if a soap is not working whatever you tried (like in my case), don't immediately degrade it to an expensive hand soap but leave it alone for a few weeks and try again.

 

[Obsessed]

Final advice: if a soap is not working whatever you tried (like in my case), don't immediately degrade it to an expensive hand soap but leave it alone for a few weeks and try again.

Also, really do try to follow the advice on the various tutorial threads on soap lathering. They can seem counterintuitive at first (e.g., "why the heck should I shake all that water out of the brush I just soaked?"), but they really do work. You just have to be willing to put in a couple more minutes in the lathering process to enjoy exponentially better results.