Jel999 said:Can you help me out please, gents. I'm no Bill Gates & left clicking on the image shack thing achieves nothing. Right clicking opens up a thingy so I click view image and all I get is a toothpaste advert followed by some plum getting out of his pit. Do I soak it first then move the mouse in an anti-clockwise motion for 45 secs or what ? ;-)
Thanks for this thread and post. I was about to ditch soaps and return to creams but after a test lather loading for 45 secs (Tabac) with a drier brush and adding water a few drips at a time I now know I had too little soap and too much water hence running out of lather after 1 pass. Now I have enough to shave my whole body should I be so inclined (might finish off my blade stocks though!)New soap users tend to start with too much water and not enough soap so the tutorial is a back to basics grounding of building lather from scratch with a dry brush while slowly hydrating the lather, with practice you'll be doing it in no time, identifying any problems early and adding your own twist on proceedings. I need to update the tutorial but as you mentioned it, my routine starts by face lathering and then moving to the bowl to create more lather for the second pass...keeps everything warm civilised for the second pass.
...it does lather quite well, the visual cues used to judge a soap's lather do not translate accurately with the GMS (Green Mountain Soap) soap. At first, the lather seems bubbly and airy. As outlined above, all of our editors reported poor performance at first use utilising their standard lathering technique. We all soon discovered that adding significantly more water than we were used to transformed the lather from a weak, airy dish-detergent looking lather into a thick, rich emulsion, resembling lathers from top-shelf products that we have become accustomed to, albeit without ever reaching the “meringue†stage that some look for. It seems noteworthy that the meringue stage of lather is reached with other high end soaps before adding a little water to improve the consistency (i.e., thin it out to make it better suited for shaving), and with GMS water is added to thicken up the soap. It is possible that the extra glycerin requires additional water, but that is only a supposition...
A friend gave me a hard soap that had puzzled me somewhat recently. It was the hardest I had ever used as regards getting a good lather and that baffled me as it has great ingredients including tallow. I then read some reviews and one stood out:
After some failed attempts I read the above and gave it one last 'Hail Mary' try. This time I let it 'bloom' for at least 15 mins. or better before lathering. I kept a steady flow of hot water into the bowl with the soap, albeit a trickle, while lathering for several minutes when it suddenly came to life. Never have I seen a soap so 'thirsty'!!It is however an extremely dense triple milled soap.
So you've been lathering with creams and now you want to try some soap or you've got a soap puck and you're having trouble with it.
The idea is to get you into a consistent routine so you can get great lather time after time.
As you can see the brush is a cheap boar from WS and the bowl is glass without any surface texture (not recommended). Fill your sink with hot water leaving the brush and bowl to soak and add a tsp of water to sit on top of the puck to soften it. (>2 mins or go shower)
In time you'll fiqure out what works best for your particular brush and soap but initially at least SQUEEZE hard and give two good SHAKES before soap loading. Then really load that brush, I spent a good 30 - 45 sec's doing this. If you're getting airy suds spilling from the puck at this point I would say your brush has too much water in it to begin with (more squeezing or shaking required). You can always add water later. If you are using a badger brush with softer hair bear in mind you may need to load for even longer but if in doubt overload your brush.
With a hard soap, especially triple milled you need to twirl and occasionally plunge the brush until you feel a paste forming on top of the puck, when you feel it "smearing" keep loading untill the hairs clump together with soap.
I'm lathering in a bowl for the sake of the demo but I would recommend this method to start. You do get ultimate control.
Some like to pour the water sitting on top of the puck into the container, I didn't here but agitate for 30 sec's or so.
I literally added a few drops of warm water by dipping my fingers and letting them drip in the bowl.
Agitated vigorously for 30 sec
A few more drops and more agitation. Less visible air bubbles and you should be able to feel the lather become thicker.
Okay almost there. Thick but not slick.(<2 mins)
At this point you would transfer to your'e chops and work the lather more on face or in bowl.
For the demo I am going to lather on the hand for the final phase and I recommend you try this for yourself and you really get to feel the transformation from just thick to thick and slick. Work it for a while on the hand and you'll see.
As the lather "tightens" it becomes denser and and it visibly changes texture.
I would describe the lather as a cross between thick double cream and hand cream with a tacky texture, rub the lather between your finger tips to get a feel of the lather's "slipperiness", this is a good indication of the lubrication that a soap/lather can provide.
I brushed the ceramic wall so you can see the composition of the lather.
Thick and slick with minimum of visible air bubbles and in about 2 mins or so.
There are many factors that affect the quality of lather but soaps can be much fussier than creams, spending 20 minutes practicing your technique will certainly save you time in the long run. You will also find that as you become more accustomed with the characteristics of your brush and soap you will naturally be able to produce the lather you desire in much less time.
Hope this helps.
WOW! That's the really good tutorial, I am looking forward for the cream version...
I'm retired but thankyou.
There is one somewhere but I'm retired thanks. Shame the pics have disappeared but I'm not using a WS boar again, that is in semi-retirement as my coffee machine cleaning brush. ATB.
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