Small issue lathering with Art of Shaving soap

**scot e** · 09-06-2011, 07:13 PM

As the title says I have an issue with lathering with the art of shaving lavender shave soap. I got the soap yesterday from the store in a mall just to try since I like the lavender cream. I have never used a shave soap before and all I have used so far is creams and though it would be nice to try the superlather that everyone talks about.

Anyway on to the main topic. Tonight I went to shave and put my brush in some hot water. Wet four of my fingers and swirl the water that was on my fingers on top of the shave soap. I proceeded to do this three times total and by the third time the soap was starting to become soft and slippery. I removed my brush from the water and let it pour water out and then gave it a good shake or two. Just to check the amount of water I squeezed the brush but no water came out. So I swirled and pumped the brush on the shave soap for 15 seconds which caused a lot of lather to be created and I check the brush and it looked to have a good amount of lather on the tips but the center of the brush looked to have no lather on it. I put the brush in to a small bowl and proceeded to start building lather. After adding some water the lather started to appear but it was not exploding out of the bowl like the cream version would. I probably spent 5 minutes at least mixing and adding water but I finally stopped since I was worried about adding to much water. I put some of the lather on my fingers and found it to be pretty slick so I put the lathered my face and noticed it was not as thick as the cream's lather and the brush looked so empty after the lathering. I did my first pass and it was not that bad. I did two more passes but with each pass the lather seemed to be getting thinner and thinner. After washing my face off with warm water and picked up my alum block and got ready for the sting of my life since I thought I probably had some irritation from my poor lather. Amazingly the alum just tingled on my face which was not what I was expecting. I checked my face and my neck and found no more irritated then usual. So my shave was a DFS even with a poor lather (to me at least).

So to my question is the lather of a shave soap usually not as thick as shave cream and does it seam like I'm doing something wrong. I'm also thinking about getting a larger bowl since it is difficult at times to mix creams in my current bowl. Again I'm sorry if this sounds stupid but I have only used creams before. Also I'm sorry for the length of this post but I felt like if I did not go in to detail something huge would be missed. Thanks everyone for your help and I hope this will help other people.

**Jim** · 09-06-2011, 07:18 PM

Scott you need to load your brush for much longer, try to pick up the same amount of soap slag as you would use of the cream.

Try just putting a teaspoon of hot water on the puck and let it sit overnight, if it has been on the shelf for a while they get a very tough, almost crust on them, this will soften it.

You mention that you are getting a lot of lather off the puck, that can mean your brush is still too wet, really shake it out.

Keep us informed.

**scot e** · 09-06-2011, 08:49 PM

Thanks Jim for the advise. I will try what you said. I was looking around and I came across your post on how to build lather from a shaving soap. The badger brush that I use is pretty soft so the recommendation to load for a minute will probably help a lot. Thanks again Jim.

**franz** · 09-06-2011, 09:05 PM

That initial explosion of lather can be deceptive. Sometimes it is just pre-lather.

Like salt in cooking, too little water is easily remedied but too much water is not.

**scot e** · 09-06-2011, 10:38 PM

Well I just tried what Jim said here and on the thread the started about lathering. The lather that was generated seems to be pretty stable with no drying out. While mixing the soap I think I put in probably 6 or so teaspoons of water. I'm guessing on the amount of water but it seemed that the lather was not getting watery. Here are some pictures of my lather building.

My shave brush and bowl which is bigger then what was used earlier.

Shave soap after at least 45 seconds of loading.

Shave brush after loading.

Shave brush and bowl after a lot of water added.

Lather on my face after swirling and painting it on.

**Deacon Frank** · 09-06-2011, 11:05 PM

Some nice-looking lather, Scot!

**Jim** · 09-07-2011, 05:38 AM

Bingo!

Looking good Scot.

**scot e** · 09-07-2011, 07:34 AM

Thanks guys. I was just doing a practice lather or two last night. I can't wait to try using Jim's method when I shave again. Hopefully this time the lather will stay nice and thick the whole time.

**Jim** · 09-07-2011, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by scot e

Thanks guys. I was just doing a practice lather or two last night. I can't wait to try using Jim's method when I shave again. Hopefully this time the lather will stay nice and thick the whole time.

You should have no problems now. FWIW that tutorial was a team effort by some of the guys.

**Go West Young Man** · 09-07-2011, 08:42 AM

Every one of those pictures look just about perfect!

**PozzSka** · 09-07-2011, 10:53 AM

That's what mine looked like the other day...terrific stuff. Enjoy!

**Mike Schutz** · 09-07-2011, 04:52 PM

You've just figured out that alot of product gives you great lather.

I load my brush for a full minute and get great lather. By the way, it will not deminish the life of your AoS puck. My
sandlewood puck lasted over a year in my rotation with regular use.

Enjoy,

**ltjaw** · 09-07-2011, 07:34 PM

Congrats. Nice lather. I, too, find AOS soap (made by Valobra in Italy) to give me a very smooth, irritation-free shave. Even when the lather is only fair to middlin'.

**Go West Young Man** · 09-07-2011, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by ltjaw

Congrats. Nice lather. I, too, find AOS soap (made by Valobra in Italy) to give me a very smooth, irritation-free shave. Even when the lather is only fair to middlin'.

[nitpick] AoS soap is made in the USA, using ingredients from a variety of sources including, but not only, Valobra. [/nitpick]

**scot e** · 09-08-2011, 06:35 AM

Well yesterday I shaved with the AOS soap and this time the lather looked to be nice and thick through my whole shave. One thing I changed was that I used my brand new feather SS razor with a feather blade that I bought from a guy on the BST. I had used a feather blade a few years ago when I first tried to use a de. The blade did not do to well in my merkur 34c but I was still learning and I'm still learning since I only restarted this hobby about a month ago. I finished with my shave and used my alum block to help judge the quality of the shave. The shave was not that bad and I did not have any irritation. The shave was not as close as I was wanting since the blade angle is different but at least I did not get any irritation. Can't wait to shave again. It feels weird to say that I look forward to shaving again. Thanks everyone for all the great information but now that I can build lather now I have to find the sweet spot.

**franz** · 09-08-2011, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Go West Young Man

[nitpick] AoS soap is made in the USA, using ingredients from a variety of sources including, but not only, Valobra. [/nitpick]

Do you have a source for that, Chris?

**Go West Young Man** · 09-08-2011, 12:45 PM

Friend of mine who used to work in their corporate comptroller's office (but unfortunately left the company last year, so no good schwag for me. )

**anbu** · 09-08-2011, 01:03 PM

Wow, that's a nice lather. My order just came today. I can't wait to try it later. This will be my first luxury soap. Thanks for this topic and for the tips.

Btw, if you want to buy this soap, I order one from ebay and when it came, the package has a sticker on it that says reorder from shavingcreams.com. I check it out and they have the cheapest price for the soap plus the code "reorder" and you get 10% off. I wonder if you guys have bought from this store.

**scot e** · 09-08-2011, 03:05 PM

That's who I got my SOS lavender cream through, but I used there amazon account. The cream showed up very fast. I would have used them but the SOS was in the mall and I really wanted to try it.