Introduction
This page was created for the Interactive Guide to Lathering. This page is not intended to be a Lathering tutorial. For all lathering tutorial, please see this page..
Different options?
There are different techniques available to the wet shaver to load their brushes and to make some lather. Keep in mind that you might have a preference on the technique that you might use (YMMV).
Loading the brush/Using the product
This section documents different techniques to load the shaving brush. There are no right/wrong methods, if you have enough product, you will be able to produce enough lather for your shave. From there, you can either proceed to face lather, continue to build the lather on the shaving soap/cream (uses a lot of product) or use a bowl (bowl lathering).
Directly on the brush
This must be the most common way to load a shaving brush. The wet shaver would load the brush directly on top of the shaving soap or shaving cream.
Directly on the area to be shaved (for face lathering)
A shaving stick is normally used as applying the product on the area where the lather is desired. The wet shaver would then proceed to building the lather. For this technique, you can use a shaving stick or shaving cream.
Fist Bowl
Building the Lather
Depending on the method, there are advantages and inconveniences on using one method versus another. As an example, face lathering will most likely result in cold lather in the second or third pass. A Scuttle could be used to fix this issue.
Bowl Lathering
This method to produce lather must be the most common method. It consist of using a bowl, large cappuccino mug or small cereal bowl to create the lather. Using a Scuttle would be similar to bowl lathering. The advantages of using this technique would be to have a better control on the temperature of the lather. Also, it is very easy to create multiple batches of lather to practice the lather or test a product before your next shave.
Face Lathering
When a wet shaver face lather (or leg lather), it would be the action of creating the lather directly on the area to be shaved. The advantage or using this method would be to have a better feeling of the product. This allows the wet shaver to know when the lather is ready by seeing it and feeling it. The main disadvantage would be that the lather can be cold quickly.