My wet face is diluting my lather between passes!!

[Ian5]

It's all too easy to get caught up in thinking that expensive soaps or creams will guarantee good lather, but the truth is it comes down to practice.
Using lower priced products is where i would suggest you begin.
@donnie_arko recommended Palmolive shave cream. It's good stuff at a low price.
Nivea shave cream (also in a tube) is also good (available in Home Bargains, et al)
At their price point, you could practice lather to your hearts content and it would only cost you 50p at most.
You'll get there soon, and it will come naturally.

One thing to note - is a 3 pass shave necessary? (Lots of youtube shaving videos feature 3 pass shaves when two passes will suffice)
If your lather isn't too great, you'll certainly cause more irritation. This is what makes lots of people who try traditional wet shaving give up. They blame their tools and not their technique and ability.

Initially I was mostly using the Badger and Blade guides for what soaps to use and as most of them had tallow I just went straight to the stuff I could find that didn't. But you're right of course, and I have some good, cheaper veg-based options to try from all of your suggestions now!

 

[PLANofMAN]

Just shaved. It was better!! I used less water - just what remained on the brush really. It didn't really look like there was a lot of lather in the bowl but there was more than enough for 3 passes. I think before I was trying to get like a bowl full of meringue which maybe was stupid. It seemed like what other people got in pictures I guess.

I actually lathered a bit on my face which made all the difference. I would even say probably the main thing I was doing wrong was not face lathering a little bit. I sort of thought "I'm using a bowl and I exfoliated so I won't lather on my face at all!!" Bit this was plainly wrong.

I also wiped my face between passes a bit more carefully so I wasn't dripping wet.

Anyway your tips were great and I actually used quite a lot of them. Thanks for the help guys.

PS I used the Muhle Sea Buckthorn aftershave after seeing people rave about it all over the place and it is a WEIRD smell. Not unpleasant!!! I've just never smelt anything like it!!! Kindof a sweet, subtle feminine smell. If you have aftershave ennui I would try it, it's surprising!!!

The key is to go at the soap with a fairly dry brush, and slowly add water once you have a paste forming on your brush. Then you work the lather until the bubbles are all but invisible to the naked eye, and the few visible are in little clumps of 4 or 5 bubbles. The lather will remain in a peak when you pull the brush out of the lather. This is your basic, good lather.

When the lather is at that point (and starting out, it's usually a minute of lathering more than you were expecting), you can leave it as is for a more cushiony lather, or add more water (just kiss the surface of the water with your brush) to thin it out and make it slicker. If you add more water before this point, you'll wind up with a runny mess, not a thinned out lather.

I've tried most of the various lathering methods put forward over the last 20 years, and they all pretty much boil down to the above, mostly with some extra steps, and without good visual clues to what point you are at in the lather making process.

For what it's worth, I face lather 95% of the time, and go to my face to work the paste into lather.

 

[BBS]

I've decided lathering is like golf. Unless you are a pro golfer, you nearly always tend to hit the ball short rather than long, by erring too much caution and forgetting it usually is as fine to be long as it is short (indeed designers know about this mental battle, so most danger is often actually short). Same with lathering - almost always err towards not quite enough water (and often not enough soap too). Taken me years to routinely use more soap, and even more water. Now to nail the golf....