Soap issue with boar brushes - advice needed

Sandpaper

Sandpaper

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62
Hi, I had a search and couldn't see a post helping with this but I'm sure it has come up before so sorry for any repetition.

It doesn't matter whether it's an old broken in boar brush or a recent purchase - 21mm or 28mm, I cannot seem to produce enough lather for the second and third passes.

Also - same issue whether DR Harris soap, Razorock, Cella or Arko

This relates to face lathering

I have tried loading heavily e.g. for over 60-75 seconds but still no success after the first pass.

The initial face lather is great and perfect for a cushioned 1st pass, but then the second time around is thinner and nothing like the first. I can squeeze a bit of lather out of the base of the brush by hand but it's not much and then nothing left for the rest of the 2nd pass and I have to reload to complete the pass or for touch ups or a 3rd pass.

Any advice? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance
 
Sandpaper said:
Hi, I had a search and couldn't see a post helping with this but I'm sure it has come up before so sorry for any repetition.

It doesn't matter whether it's an old broken in boar brush or a recent purchase - 21mm or 28mm, I cannot seem to produce enough lather for the second and third passes.

Also - same issue whether DR Harris soap, Razorock, Cella or Arko

This relates to face lathering

I have tried loading heavily e.g. for over 60-75 seconds but still no success after the first pass.

The initial face lather is great and perfect for a cushioned 1st pass, but then the second time around is thinner and nothing like the first. I can squeeze a bit of lather out of the base of the brush by hand but it's not much and then nothing left for the rest of the 2nd pass and I have to reload to complete the pass or for touch ups or a 3rd pass.

Any advice? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance
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What brushes are you using?

I don't get this with my well used or new boar brushes. I can get a good 2 passes out of the ones I use on a regular basis, sometimes maybe enough for a third pass if I wanted to.
 
Some piggies are just hungry!

I tend to find Semogue needs to return to the puck for a second pass with more modern soaps. Omega are all fine, for me. I do have one newer Omega which is kinda hit and miss, but in the main performs as expected.

I use triple milled soaps pretty much exclusively and my routine is to soak the brush and then wring it out ... hard. With a fully wrung out brush, I do 80 swirls (20/20/20/20 in alternating directions) and then a very light dip in the water, flick out and a further 20 (10/10). That's 100 swirls. With your 60-75 second, that's probably the same sorta ballpark ... but do start with a fully wrung out brush.

I face lather and the first pass will be a very firm lather which I then let out a bit with a splash between passes and a second lather. I rarely do three but there'd be enough on the brush.
 
Agree with pjgh.

There is one Brush that I have that does not like to be soaked though, no matter how much water I tried to get rid of. Every time I did it I ended up with a decent enough first pass, but watery nothing on the second. Splash and go and I get a better a lather with that one. You may risk more broken bristles, but I haven't experienced that yet.

But in the main, what pjgh said.
 
donnie_arko said:
What brushes are you using?

I don't get this with my well used or new boar brushes. I can get a good 2 passes out of the ones I use on a regular basis, sometimes maybe enough for a third pass if I wanted to.
Click to expand...
Semogue 610 and a Zenith B08 28mm - the big aluminium one - they are both broken in. New brush - Zenith unbleached 505RC XSE 26mm - it's only a problem with my boar brushes when face lathering
 
Sandpaper said:
Semogue 610 and a Zenith B08 28mm - the big aluminium one - they are both broken in. New brush - Zenith unbleached 505RC XSE 26mm - it's only a problem with my boar brushes when face lathering
Click to expand...

I had a Semogue 1470 and a bleached Zenith, I couldn't get a good lather with both of those brushes however much soap I loaded.

I've got a newish unbleached Zenith with a small 21mm knot, and I can get a good 3 passes of lather from one generous loading. Face lathered, no need to load between passes.

Most of my Omegas would hold 2/3 passes of lather no problem too.
 
Sandpaper said:
Hi, I had a search and couldn't see a post helping with this but I'm sure it has come up before so sorry for any repetition.

It doesn't matter whether it's an old broken in boar brush or a recent purchase - 21mm or 28mm, I cannot seem to produce enough lather for the second and third passes.

Also - same issue whether DR Harris soap, Razorock, Cella or Arko

This relates to face lathering

I have tried loading heavily e.g. for over 60-75 seconds but still no success after the first pass.

The initial face lather is great and perfect for a cushioned 1st pass, but then the second time around is thinner and nothing like the first. I can squeeze a bit of lather out of the base of the brush by hand but it's not much and then nothing left for the rest of the 2nd pass and I have to reload to complete the pass or for touch ups or a 3rd pass.

Any advice? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
I would go with not soaking the boar bristles for long enough. If not soaked long enough the bristles tend to soak up the soap and the result is low lather. I soak the boar bristles in warm water for at least 10 minutes before I start a shave. A viable alternative is a synthetic hair brush which doesn;t need to be soaked - a Tuxedo knot mimics a broken in animal hair brush.
 
Anthorn said:
I would go with not soaking the boar bristles for long enough. If not soaked long enough the bristles tend to soak up the soap and the result is low lather. I soak the boar bristles in warm water for at least 10 minutes before I start a shave. A viable alternative is a synthetic hair brush which doesn;t need to be soaked - a Tuxedo knot mimics a broken in animal hair brush.
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Thanks - yes I have some synthetics but I love boar brushes and just want to make them work better. Will try longer soaking along with some of the earlier tips from others
 
Sandpaper said:
Thanks - yes I have some synthetics but I love boar brushes and just want to make them work better. Will try longer soaking along with some of the earlier tips from others
Click to expand...
The other variable I neglected to mention is the soap or more accurately the soap ingredients. If you have soft water you can probably shout "Boom! Lather!" with just about any soap or cream but with hard water a tallow based soap including wool fat soap will be harder to lather. My water in Cambridgeshire is hardest of the hard and I find soft soap which we know as croap the most successful and shaving cream second. The soaps I use ranked in order from best to worst is Extro, 3P, TOBs cream and Haslinger.
 
That said and as an aside, here's a fun curveball!

"Over on another forum, we had a discussion where we posted up our water hardness figures to establish who had the hardest water. I think the trophy went to a chap whose water is 447.25 ppm of calcium carbonate (this is hard, by the way) ... mine is 28.8 mg/L (pretty much an equal conversion from ppm to mg/L), by way of comparison and only really pipped by those softies over the Pennines towards the east coast and up into the Lake District here in Britain."

With samples of both, I set about a test on a couple of brand new pucks of the now vintage MWF:

Mitchell's Wool Fat - Water Sensitive? Answer Inside ...

This post was lost during the forum upgrades and I happened upon it on another forum and so in light of recent debate about MWF in another post, I thought I'd re-post it. It's something that we read again and again and again ... Folks in soft water areas claiming Mitchell's Wool Fat to be the...
www.theshavingroom.co.uk www.theshavingroom.co.uk

TLDR I preferred the hard(est) water!I think good triple-milled soaps will burst into lather with the smallest amount of any water.

@Sandpaper does mention DR Harris (which is an excellent triple-milled soap) but the issue is not whether it lathers but whether there's sufficient soap left on the brush for a second pass.
 
but the issue is not whether it lathers but whether there's sufficient soap left on the brush for a second pass.
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@pigh

Which takes me back to my original reply: i.e. if the bristles are not soaked enough the bristles absorb the soap (and so there is not enough soap for a second pass.)

Re tallow/wool fat soap and hard water I do have personal experience: I used to live in Cumberland/Cumbria which has very soft water and I used to use Mitchel's Wool Fat with great success. However I moved to Cambridgeshire and I couldn't get any lather at all. I had to use (Brita) filtered water and a tablespoon of cider vinegar which worked but it was too much of a faff.

@
 
I am in a soft water area - LS29 - Yorkshire. I am going to do some experiments with techniques based on the advice and see how i get on. I have always been loading heavy - prob 2-3 x what I would on a synthetic! so that's why I have been puzzled
 
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