Tutorial: How to make lather from a shaving cream with a bowl

lenard said:

Nice tutorial, I wish I could get that much lather from proraso . I blame the hard water here, will give proraso another try tomorrow.

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Yep, I have the same issue. Hard water But, when I put more muscle power into it I can get very close to this lather.

Good looking tutorial. I bought my first tube of cream yesterday and looking forward to giving it a try.

an absolutely tremendous tutorial. mille grazie!!

Excellent!

Wonderfully helpful, Luc!

The only thing I do that is significantly different is, I don't squeeze but give the brush one quick shake. That leaves more water farther up in the brush, but after starting the lather, instead of adding drops of water, I gently press the knot against the edge of the bowl from different sides. That drains some very thin, watery lather back into the bowl where I can whip it lightly into thicker lather nearer the tips. I find that faster and easier than titrating!

By the way, your amount of lather is pretty much what I get with Proraso or Omega and it seems plenty for 3-4 passes. It all depends on what's up there in the brush too, which varies with the specific brush and is kind of hard to assess in a photo.

- Bill

I do that with the same results using CO Bigelow.

Is there by any chance a way to know if your lather is too runny?

neostyles said:

Is there by any chance a way to know if your lather is too runny?

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You should be able to do small spikes. It should be like a yogurt consistency.

Well I used this technique this morning with a tube of The Real Shaving co for sensative skin and I got the best shave ever. My skin doesn't feel like sandpaper post shave anymore!

Thanks for the pictures, really showed me how horrible my cream was!

Curly said:

Thanks for the pictures, really showed me how horrible my cream was!

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Welcome to B&B!

Thanks Luc. Tutorial is to the point and cociseand the photos are great.

Nice tutorial, part with brush preasure was very important to me, since I tend to break things easily

What am I missing, I dont see any pictures.... ?

Edit:

Now that I posted a reply, pics became visible....

Thanx this is great! Going to try it with my new vanilla KMF shave cream

Knowing how much water to remove from the brush before lathering is the hardest part in my experience. Getting consistent lather can be a challenge and sometimes it feels like the cream has a mind of it's own. One really easy technique that has given me great results is simply shaking out all the water until none drips off when you hold the brush over the sink. I find that doing a couple hard shakes and then rounding off a couple little shakes to get the last little bit of extra water works best.

I personally find this method to be much easier than gauging how how half of the water in the brush is.

neostyles said:

Knowing how much water to remove from the brush before lathering is the hardest part in my experience. Getting consistent lather can be a challenge and sometimes it feels like the cream has a mind of it's own. One really easy technique that has given me great results is simply shaking out all the water until none drips off when you hold the brush over the sink. I find that doing a couple hard shakes and then rounding off a couple little shakes to get the last little bit of extra water works best.

I personally find this method to be much easier than gauging how how half of the water in the brush is.

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That's another good trick! Unfortunately both cannot be 100% spot on for each bowl of lather. Depending on the size of the knot, your brush might hold more/less water regardless how you take the water out. I find it easier to adjust my lather if I need to add water.

I can't seem to see the images. Posting to see if that helps as per Melted's discovery.

mfells said:

I can't seem to see the images. Posting to see if that helps as per Melted's discovery.

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Welcome to B&B! I will transfer this tutorial in Wiki soon so it should help...

Very nice tutorial. Has helped me out tremendously. Thanks guys for all you do.

I have a small question. Does the size of the bowl impact how much lather you get from a product? My bowl is rather small unfortunately from Shavemac. When I ordered it looked bigger in the pictures. I'm curious if I use a bigger size bowl/mug will I get more lather?