Can you explain to a blind person how to apply lather?

[ralph029]

Okay! I thought I'd share my latest results with the suggestions that I picked from this thread.
First off, a picture of the lather I got, this time on the brush. Not sure if I myself am also visible in this photo:
View attachment 1788623
I built this lather in the bowl, and applied it to my face, and started shaving. This was using the Castle Forbes Lavender.
Here are my learnings:

• The first issue I faced during the shave was that I noticed the lather was a bit dry. It was very easy to wet the very tips of my fingers and apply the water straight to the lather on my face, using what I had learned while experimenting with @AimlessWanderer
• The second issue I faced was that, since this was almost the very end of my shaving cream, my lather ran out. It was very easy to swirl my finger underneath the nooks and crannies of the cream container, gather a bit on my finger, put that in my palm, and lather straight in my palm as @Alum of Potash described
• As I was lathering in my palm, I noticed that the lather was a bit too dry. I tried two ways of adding water:
  1. The first was to do what @ralph029 suggested: grab some with my finger and drop it into a bowl (well, in this case, my palm). I could feel 8 or so drops fall on my palm, which is great
  2. The second was something I thought of, which was to very barely open the tap, until I hear the "tap, tap, tap" of drops falling into the sink. When it hit a rhythm, I held the brush under the tap until I couldn't hear the drops hit the sink any more, which meant they were falling on my brush instead! Then, since I knew the rate at which the drops were falling, I could estimate how long it'd take for 4 drops to fall on my brush
• I got to experience first hand what many of you had been saying, the last time by @ralph029: soaps/creams are very different, and so it goes with Speick vs Castle Forbes. I could add a lot more water to the Castle Forbes lather, either in my palm, or in the bowl, or directly on my face with my fingers, and the cream would still hold its shape. However, I also noticed that even at its most wet, it was too thick/dry for me
• Although many people here don't see much value in a pre-shave cream, applying the Proraso Sensitive pre-shave cream in the second and third pass gave me a really supple face feel after the shave, and also helped me get a much closer shave than just with Castle Forbes. I'm going to continue using pre-shaves while my razor and lathering technique improves, so that I can get the super smooth shave I love
• And finally, my biggest achievement: at last, I think I can tell when a lather isn't good because of my technique, versus when it is not my fault, and I just don't like the way the cream feels

I think, finally, I'm more confident to go out there, experiment, adjust, and learn experientially. You guys have given me the tools to evaluate different options, get feedback on my technique, and adjust when things need fixing. I'm very grateful to you all and hope that I can learn even more from you

That is a wonderful update parham. You'll get no shortage of help or opinions from this group!

 

[parham]

Hi all! I thought I'd give you all an update of how i've been doing!
So, I've learned a few more things.
First, I'm gravitating toward the palm lathering because it produces consistent results. I can now, with very high confidence, produce good lather, even when moving to a different soap/cream, as I'll share below.
Second, my Castle Forbes ran out and I've got an Abbate Y La Mantia Krokos, and I can totally feel the difference in the face feel after the shave, and the slickness during the shave. This certainly encourages me to keep trying different soaps as I go!
Third, I started pressing a little bit on my brush when applying lather. This breaks the backbone of my brush a little bit, but I get a much better face feel, and the lather I apply to my face is a lot more. I also end up not moving lather around, and not missing any spots. Not sure how good this is for the brush as I have to press a little, but I'm definitely not mashing the knot to my face or anything extreme.
I'm very curious how this applies to brush lofts and different hairs – it seems like I like wider knots that I can move back and forthagainst my skin. Not sure how this translates to the right terminology?
I also got a couple of insights about why I don't find my lathers slick enough.
I think part of the reason I've been not so satisfied with the slickness of my lathers is either my technique, or my razor/blade combo. It seems like what's happening is that, if I shave without touching my face at all, I get no irritation afterwards. However, as soon as I end up touching my face during the shave, unhappiness starts.
Now, I have a couple of theories and I wonder how you all think about this. One theory is that touching the lather compresses it and reduces its effectiveness. I can most easily feel this with the foam that comes out of a can – that was so foamy that I had to press down with my fingers to see if I had missed a spot, or to check the grain on an upcoming area, and the blade (back then a cartridge) would feel too close to my face.
The other theory is that my technique needs improving, and when I touch my face, I feel everything that's left, and then I go over that area again and again. I've caught myself doing this a few times, so this is definitely an issue.
So, here is the experiment I came up with: do two passes like @brucered suggests, without touching my face, one with and one against the grain. I'm not allowed to touch my face during the shave, only after.
I'm thinking of doing this for a month to see how I do. Regardless, I think it'll improve my technique, but I also wonder if it'll reduce irritation.
This is experiment number one. Experiment number two is going to be what @Xonic suggested in a private conversation: using Skinfood instead of cream/soap. This is like the suggestion to use a brushless cream, except i imagine Skinfood is even thinner, and slicker..
What do you all think? Any suggestions/changes/ideas?

 

[NorthernSoul]

Hi all! I thought I'd give you all an update of how i've been doing!...

What do you all think? Any suggestions/changes/ideas?

I think it's perfectly OK to touch your face, just don't go over the same spot too many times (especially without some lather on it). In fact, it can be very useful to stretch the skin slightly in advance of the blade, ,so that you can get a closer shave in certain places, like around the jaw line.

Skin food is similar to some brushless creams, but was not really made for shaving with. Normally, it is used along with shaving cream. It does provide some slickness and there is no thickness to it, just a thin film. You could shave with it, but I don't see any real advantage over a proper brushless cream. You don't need a thick layer of shaving cream, just enough to do the job.

 

[frbock]

For context, you can use a can of shave cream, put some in your hand and rub it on your face... and get a reasonably good shave.
What you are adding in is the brush delivering the soap.
Easiest is bowl mix the soap (BTW the Muhle is a great brush). Try applying it by hand. You can tell how thick the lather is easily. If I have an eighth of an inch of lather on my face, that's a lot. Any more and it just clogs the blade (IMO).

 

[parham]

I think it's perfectly OK to touch your face, just don't go over the same spot too many times (especially without some lather on it).

Yes, this is the mistake that I make in my touch-up pass. I do a couple of swipes over an area, not much changes, and I (unconsciously) switch to beast mode and start going back and forth until it's super clean.

In fact, it can be very useful to stretch the skin slightly in advance of the blade, ,so that you can get a closer shave in certain places, like around the jaw line.

Yes, totally. I started doing this intuitively, also because I noticed that my skin would not slide off the razor, if that makes sense. So I don't pull hard, I just basically keep my skin still, and my jawline hasn't been a problem since.

You could shave with it, but I don't see any real advantage over a proper brushless cream.

Maybe the ones I've tried haven't been good ones. I've tried the Jack Black Beard Lube and it dried on my face very very quickly. It was a few years ago, though, so maybe I was doing something wrong, like not wetting my face enough or not wetting my razor enough.

You don't need a thick layer of shaving cream, just enough to do the job.

Yes, I get that

 

[parham]

Try applying it by hand. You can tell how thick the lather is easily.

Yep, I did that and it was very educational per @AimlessWanderer's suggestion.

 

[parham]

That lather looks very promising, Parham (I had no problems seeing this photo). However, you said that lather felt dry. Did you wet your face before applying it? If not, I think that is all it would have needed.

Hey! Sorry I missed this! Answering it now because I think it helps me communicate my thoughts to everyone more clearly.
Let me explain my issue in more words, maybe "dry" is the wrong word that I'm using.
So, what I'm trying to refer to is how much friction is between the blade and my face. When I use my Proraso pre-shave before applying the lather, the razor glides against my skin. The audible feedback is more muted, I can feel my beard being wiped away as opposed to cut, if that makes sense. I need less passes because my razor seems to pick up more hair in each pass, and when I do touch-ups, even when the lather I apply is a little bit too thin, I don't get irritation later.
When I apply just the lather, and I get this a bit less with the Abbate Y La Mantia Krokos, I feel a little bit more friction on my face. The razor doesn't glide. It still moves very easily, but it seems to capture less hair as it goes. There is more audible feedback as the blade encounters hair, and touch-ups are less effective and cause irritation.
I've tried adding water, when applying the cream/soap by hand. I have reached the point that the lather becomes so thin that just applying water with my fingertips wipes the lather away. Even then, I felt the things I described above.
Now, as I write this, I'm also thinking that maybe I'm expecting too much of a close shave from a safety razor plus lather combo. Maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist and wanting my face to be too smooth.
Or, maybe pre-shave creams aren't as bad as people say?

 

[blethenstrom]

Hey! Sorry I missed this! Answering it now because I think it helps me communicate my thoughts to everyone more clearly.
Let me explain my issue in more words, maybe "dry" is the wrong word that I'm using.
So, what I'm trying to refer to is how much friction is between the blade and my face. When I use my Proraso pre-shave before applying the lather, the razor glides against my skin. The audible feedback is more muted, I can feel my beard being wiped away as opposed to cut, if that makes sense. I need less passes because my razor seems to pick up more hair in each pass, and when I do touch-ups, even when the lather I apply is a little bit too thin, I don't get irritation later.
When I apply just the lather, and I get this a bit less with the Abbate Y La Mantia Krokos, I feel a little bit more friction on my face. The razor doesn't glide. It still moves very easily, but it seems to capture less hair as it goes. There is more audible feedback as the blade encounters hair, and touch-ups are less effective and cause irritation.
I've tried adding water, when applying the cream/soap by hand. I have reached the point that the lather becomes so thin that just applying water with my fingertips wipes the lather away. Even then, I felt the things I described above.
Now, as I write this, I'm also thinking that maybe I'm expecting too much of a close shave from a safety razor plus lather combo. Maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist and wanting my face to be too smooth.
Or, maybe pre-shave creams aren't as bad as people say?

There is nothing wrong with pre shave creams if that makes the shave more comfortable for you. This is a ymmv world and different things work and do not work for different people. There is really no right or wrong answer here.

You were talking about your expectation with a de and lather. You should be able to get smooth results but there are many factors and they take time and experience to work out. Skill level is one, lather another, but I think also being able to adjust when things are not the way it should be is very important. For example if we have a trouble area on the face we may have to experiment and learn a different technique to handle that etc.

 

[blethenstrom]

Hey! Sorry I missed this! Answering it now because I think it helps me communicate my thoughts to everyone more clearly.
Let me explain my issue in more words, maybe "dry" is the wrong word that I'm using.
So, what I'm trying to refer to is how much friction is between the blade and my face. When I use my Proraso pre-shave before applying the lather, the razor glides against my skin. The audible feedback is more muted, I can feel my beard being wiped away as opposed to cut, if that makes sense. I need less passes because my razor seems to pick up more hair in each pass, and when I do touch-ups, even when the lather I apply is a little bit too thin, I don't get irritation later.
When I apply just the lather, and I get this a bit less with the Abbate Y La Mantia Krokos, I feel a little bit more friction on my face. The razor doesn't glide. It still moves very easily, but it seems to capture less hair as it goes. There is more audible feedback as the blade encounters hair, and touch-ups are less effective and cause irritation.
I've tried adding water, when applying the cream/soap by hand. I have reached the point that the lather becomes so thin that just applying water with my fingertips wipes the lather away. Even then, I felt the things I described above.
Now, as I write this, I'm also thinking that maybe I'm expecting too much of a close shave from a safety razor plus lather combo. Maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist and wanting my face to be too smooth.
Or, maybe pre-shave creams aren't as bad as people say?

I think the key is to work out a shave routine that works well enough for the time being and get proficient at that one and then slowly but surely change one thing at a time so we can tell what difference the change made and if the shave is better or worse etc. Otherwise it is very difficult to nail anything down. Shaving has to become natural to us.

 

[parham]

Okay, today's update.
I did another shave today, and I noticed that as my skill level grows, I can understand better what's happening, explain it better, and help you all help me
So, per @blethenstrom's suggestion, I'm going to keep my routine the same for the next month. That way as I keep updating here, you all can at least see how changes in my technique are affecting things, and what my goals are.
Here is my shave routine for the next month:

1. Wet my face, and apply Proraso pre-shave
2. Palm lather my Abbate Y La Mantia Krokos soap
3. Apply the lather, and do 4 passes

I did this routine today, and was very intent on observing myself. Here are a few things I noticed:

• One thing i wasn't noticing before was that the lather was drying more and more while in the brush between passes. This was also something that @AimlessWanderer mentioned as a solution to build better lather, but at the time, it didn't occur to me that this also means my lather is getting dryer and dryer as time goes by. I noticed it this time and kept adding water to the brush by palm lathering. The method of adding the water to the palm and re-lathering to introduce more water to the knot was suggested by @Alum of Potash earlier in this thread
• I also noticed that my WTG pass was the only pass that I stuck to the plan that i had in my mind, which was to just follow the mental map of the grain. As soon as it came to my XTG passes, I'd pull my skin, and as I would do that, I'd notice that there is some stubble left somewhere. Then I'd just go all over the place, attacking stubble as I found it

My next actions based on my findings are:

1. Test lather quality between passes. i'm going to do that by applying with the brush and then running my mostly dry fingers over my face
2. Stick to the plan in my passes. I'm going to do this by trying to catch myself before I start going all over the place

My guess is that doing step 2 above is going to mean more annoying non-BBS shaves. However, I'm hoping it will also help me retrospect and find improvements in my technique.
Short term, I'm hoping to take down the number of passes. Right now, it takes me about 30 minutes or so for each shave. Also, part of the irritation I get is probably the number of passes. If I can get to a great result with 3 passes instead of 4, I'll be happy.

 

[Alum of Potash]

Four passes in thirty minutes strikes me as pretty effective. I average around two passes plus touch-ups (the latter done by feel) in around thirty minutes with a Focus R21 shavette with plastic insert loaded with a DE blade snapped in half. For me, it is important to let my beard grow out around three days or so between shaves. That yields the best result for me.

 

[parham]

Hey @Alum of Potash, I am facing a couple of issues and I'm wondering if it's because I'm doing something wrong.
The problem is that by the time I get to my fourth pass, which is my touch-up pass, there is very little lather left on my brush.
I have a few ideas on what could be wrong, but I'm not sure how to verify which is the cause, so looking for ideas.
My first idea is that maybe too much lather stays in my palm, and I just apply it to my face during the first pass. I don't have enough information about the mechanics of how lather gets built, so I'm wondering if adding both the drops of water and an almond-sized amount of my soft soap to my palm, as opposed to the brush, might be the reason.
I am saying this because I was looking back at my thread and your thread on palm lathering, and I notice that you mention you apply the soft soap or cream to the brush, and you don't just drop it into your palm like I do.
The second guess I have also comes from reading your thread, which is that the lather might be sliding closer to the handle. I wonder if there is a tactile way to check for this? Would it work if I hold my brush with the bristles down and just rub a knuckle from the knot to the middle of the bristles, turn the brush a quarter, repeat, and keep going so that I cover all sides?
Thanks!

 

[parham]

Another, separate, question is about hard soaps. I also have a couple of hard soaps, and I read that people who do palm lathering don't really like those. Is that true? The way I was thinking of doing it was to:

1. Hold the soap in my off-hand and load the soap onto my moist (not dripping wet) brush with my dominant hand
2. Put the soap back in the jar, and palm lather in my off-hand

 

[blethenstrom]

Another, separate, question is about hard soaps. I also have a couple of hard soaps, and I read that people who do palm lathering don't really like those. Is that true? The way I was thinking of doing it was to:

1. Hold the soap in my off-hand and load the soap onto my moist (not dripping wet) brush with my dominant hand
2. Put the soap back in the jar, and palm lather in my off-hand

As long as you can judge how much you load the brush from the hard soap, I certainly think you could palm lather with a hard soap. Of course if you load the brush from the hard soap like you hate it, you will have enough soap. With cream that you use now you probably can judge the amount of product a bit easier, but you can try to use a hard soap. They will certainly last you longer than the shave cream.

 

[Alum of Potash]

Hey @Alum of Potash, I am facing a couple of issues and I'm wondering if it's because I'm doing something wrong.
The problem is that by the time I get to my fourth pass, which is my touch-up pass, there is very little lather left on my brush.
I have a few ideas on what could be wrong, but I'm not sure how to verify which is the cause, so looking for ideas.
My first idea is that maybe too much lather stays in my palm, and I just apply it to my face during the first pass. I don't have enough information about the mechanics of how lather gets built, so I'm wondering if adding both the drops of water and an almond-sized amount of my soft soap to my palm, as opposed to the brush, might be the reason.
I am saying this because I was looking back at my thread and your thread on palm lathering, and I notice that you mention you apply the soft soap or cream to the brush, and you don't just drop it into your palm like I do.
The second guess I have also comes from reading your thread, which is that the lather might be sliding closer to the handle. I wonder if there is a tactile way to check for this? Would it work if I hold my brush with the bristles down and just rub a knuckle from the knot to the middle of the bristles, turn the brush a quarter, repeat, and keep going so that I cover all sides?
Thanks!

Hello Parham,

I'm normally doing two passes with touch-ups, and if I follow you, you are doing three passes plus touch-ups. So that is going to need a bit more lather than for me. By coincidence, I opened up a new tube of shaving cream today and accidentally squirted out more than I normally need. It was easily enough for four passes, so palm-lathering in this way, with a moderately-sized 20mm boar knot is possible.

As for loading, you may have read a post from a few years back, and maybe my method has changed since then. Routinely these days, I soak a hard puck in hot water, then drain it and load the tips of a soaked brush that has been given a gentle squeeze and a shake to remove most standing water. I load and load the tips from the puck for around 30-40 seconds, then I start to build lather in the palm of my off-hand, adding small amounts of water to further build the lather to a better consistency by dipping the tips only of the brush into a vessel containing water (normally what I used to soak the brush in). Once lather has been built on the palm, I apply this to my face followed by lather that is mostly at the tips of the brush. After the first pass, I do note that some lather has slid down to the base of the knot, so when this happens, I sort of squeegee it off with an index finger (forefinger) and reapply it to the tips. I do not squeeze the knot normally to bring lather back up to the tips.

With creams, I add an almond- or a hazelnut-sized dollop to the palm of the off-hand and build the lather there transferring water with the tips of the brush as mentioned above. Same method from there on out as well.

Overall, I would say that turning the brush in quarter-turns at various points during all stages off the process is helpful. I do this as well.

Hope this helps.

 

[parham]

Okay! We're about one month from my last post, so providing an update here.

First thing: switching to a bigger knot, the Trafalgar T3, made my life a lot easier. It seems to hold more lather, which is great since I do three and a half passes.

Second, switching to a bigger brush made it a bit harder to palm lather, so I started experimenting with face lathering. I managed much better this time and have been doing that as my main method of lathering for 2 weeks.

Third, face lathering made me have a better idea of what my favorite lather "feels like" on my skin, so no matter how I start the lather, whether it's palm lathering, bowl lathering, or face lathering, I'm at a better position now to adjust after I feel the lather on my face.

One thing I realized in my palm/face/bowl lathering journey is that I really like the thinner, more watery lathers like @AimlessWanderer was mentioning. When I build the lather on my face, it ends up being thicker, because I guess i'm creating layers upon layers. What I'd love to go for is a single, thin and slick layer instead.

I guess that means that during the next month, my experiment would be to build the lather in a bowl, apply to my face, and adjust by adding water if needed.

Let me know if my conclusion isn't correct, that way I can update the experiment for my next month!

As always, thanks everyone for all the help!

 

[blethenstrom]

Okay! We're about one month from my last post, so providing an update here.

First thing: switching to a bigger knot, the Trafalgar T3, made my life a lot easier. It seems to hold more lather, which is great since I do three and a half passes.

Second, switching to a bigger brush made it a bit harder to palm lather, so I started experimenting with face lathering. I managed much better this time and have been doing that as my main method of lathering for 2 weeks.

Third, face lathering made me have a better idea of what my favorite lather "feels like" on my skin, so no matter how I start the lather, whether it's palm lathering, bowl lathering, or face lathering, I'm at a better position now to adjust after I feel the lather on my face.

One thing I realized in my palm/face/bowl lathering journey is that I really like the thinner, more watery lathers like @AimlessWanderer was mentioning. When I build the lather on my face, it ends up being thicker, because I guess i'm creating layers upon layers. What I'd love to go for is a single, thin and slick layer instead.

I guess that means that during the next month, my experiment would be to build the lather in a bowl, apply to my face, and adjust by adding water if needed.

Let me know if my conclusion isn't correct, that way I can update the experiment for my next month!

As always, thanks everyone for all the help!

You can probably stick with face lathering and still get a bit thinner slicker lather. By layering like @AimlessWanderer recommends adding more water I think you can get to your desired consistency even with face lathering. I'm excited to see that things are looking up for you.