Should a soap lather look similar to a cream lather?

ccrowder · Nov 30, 2010

So here is the question.. I have been shaving with an AoS sandlewood puck using both a badger and a boar brush, mainly bowl lathering but sometimes face as well. I recently got a tub of the AoS lavender cream and gave it a go and what a difference. I got good results with the soap but with the cream it was so much softer. This leads me to wonder if I was doing a poor job with the soap lathering. I have pretty hard water which I know can effect stuff but it seemed like with the soap all I could get was really airy-ish lather, watery lather, or just really dry lather.

So my question is should a lather made with soap look very similar to a lather made with a cream? If so I have work to do..

The Last Chimney · Nov 30, 2010

It should look pretty similar. My creams tend to end up slightly more meringue-like than my soaps, but you can't tell just by looking at the loaded brush.

Some things you can try with your soap:

- Bottled or distilled water. My water is very hard, so I buy distilled water and keep in in an old Hendrick's bottle in my bathroom.

- Use a wetter or dryer brush. Different soap like different amounts of water, but the best catch-all I can recommend is a fully soaked brush with one good shake.

- Spend more time loading your brush with soap.

- Add more water. You can tell when you've got too much when the lather starts getting drippy.

kingfisher · Nov 30, 2010

It should look very similar. Yes.

cymric · Dec 1, 2010

ccrowder said:
So my question is should a lather made with soap look very similar to a lather made with a cream? If so I have work to do..

Yes. So happy experimenting.

cim_can · Dec 6, 2010

+1 on spend more time loading your brush. I usually spend at least 30 seconds on my puck of soap, with some light plunging motions thrown in for good measure.

DFrancis · Dec 6, 2010

It took me a bit of time to get a good lather with soaps as creams build easily, once you get the hang of it you should have similar looking lathers. I used much more product and more water with my soap, don't be afraid to really load the soap into the brush, better to have too much than not enough, overdo it for a while and once you have your technique down you can better judge how much you will need, if I can figure it out I'm sure anybody can :laugh:

Montecristo #2 · Dec 7, 2010

Use more product!

GreekGuy · Dec 7, 2010

ccrowder said:
So here is the question.. I have been shaving with an AoS sandlewood puck using both a badger and a boar brush, mainly bowl lathering but sometimes face as well. I recently got a tub of the AoS lavender cream and gave it a go and what a difference. I got good results with the soap but with the cream it was so much softer. This leads me to wonder if I was doing a poor job with the soap lathering. I have pretty hard water which I know can effect stuff but it seemed like with the soap all I could get was really airy-ish lather, watery lather, or just really dry lather.

So my question is should a lather made with soap look very similar to a lather made with a cream? If so I have work to do..

I have one small addition to what has already been said. My personal experience has been not to soak the AoS puck at all before loading the brush. This works well for some soaps, but not for AoS, at least for me. It took me a long time to figure out this alteration of technique with Cade, and have been getting quality lathers ever since.

Optometrist · Dec 7, 2010

I agree with the more product suggestion. Load the brush for a minimium of one minute works best for me.

David

craig87c · Dec 7, 2010

Don't be stingy with soap or cream! Per shave it's still really cheap even if you go overboard like I do.

Plus it means you get to buy and use more stuff!

Born2bwire · Dec 8, 2010

GreekGuy said:
I have one small addition to what has already been said. My personal experience has been not to soak the AoS puck at all before loading the brush. This works well for some soaps, but not for AoS, at least for me. It took me a long time to figure out this alteration of technique with Cade, and have been getting quality lathers ever since.

Yeah, I do not soak my soaps. At best I will wet the top with warm water and then pour it off. I find that if you wet the soap or the brush then you start to build up a lather as you try to load instead of picking up the soap. Keeping things relatively drier than you are used to allows you to really load up the brush and then you can gradually add water into the mix to get the right ratio. It is slower than when I used creams (I got to the point where I pretty much got the right amount of water and cream in one go) but it is pretty foolproof and the results are great.

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Should a soap lather look similar to a cream lather?

ccrowder

The Last Chimney

kingfisher

cymric

cim_can

DFrancis

Montecristo #2

GreekGuy

Optometrist

craig87c

Born2bwire

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