Background: I have been shaving with a DE and lathering my own lather for a month now. Tonight was the first night I have ever made great lather, and it happened not once but 6 times with various brands of soap. So how did I do it?
Resources: If you do not want to waste several bowls of your $10 or more lather then head out to walmart or walgreens and pick up an $1.50 hard soap of Van Der Hagen shaving soap. It smells reminds me of Nair, but its cheap and works the same as any old lather. Let's talk brushes, you probally bought an badger brush like me - If so while you are out pick up an Van Der Hagen Boar Brush too for $6-$9. I am not dissing badger brushes, it is just this brush helped me tonight and I am now a convert to boar brushes until I can afford a highly priced badger.
The most important step: Forget what YouTube has told you - You will not have thick slippery lather within x rotations or x minutes. This takes time and will get quicker the more you do it, the reason some people get quick results is they have experience at this and their brush costs more than the average grocery bill for 2 weeks.
So lets get on with it: Soak your boar brush for two minutes. Lift the brush out of water and let the water stop dripping. Give your brush two shakes you should see a teaspoon of water come out of it each time - this is not exact but its the closest guess I can give you. Since this is a hard soap we are going to rotate the brush in both counter clockwise and clockwise directions for 1 minute. Forget the pumping action and the twisting, just clockwise. You can do a painting motion if you would like and I actually add this in there a few times.
At this point your lather on the puck should be anywhere from watery to creamy. Either way slap your brush gently around in your bowl or scuttle to remove as much water and cream as possible. Return to the puck and do the motions for another 30 seconds to a minute. Add this lather to your cup/scuttle.
Do not add anymore lather and do not add anymore soap from here on out. Now do the same motions in the cup until you can almost fill the cup with lather or the peaks can stand up on their own. This process can take a long time and if you feel like giving up just leave the bowl and everything the way it is and walk away for a minute or two and return to it. Once you are done examine your lather if it appears to wet or falls and wipes off your face easily with-out touching it give it an additional shake. Once you have made a good bowl of this lather, repeat it two or three times till you can see exactly what to do.
Now what about the soap I really want to use?: Once you can make good lather on this cheaper soap graduate to your soap. For hard soaps use the same method. For creams I would recommend an additional shake of the brush when draining the water.
Notes:
Do this entire process with leukwarm water. Using hot water will dry up your lather and you will need to adjust your water ratio later when you are ready to use it, just keep the current variables to water and soap don't add heat until you are ready.
Try using your Badger brush now and you should get similar results.
Never pump a brush up and down unless you are "loading" it with already perfect lather. You do not want the brush to pump up and down and come in contact with the bowl, this will damage your brush in the long run.
I hope this helps anyone who is having problems. Good luck & Happy Shaving!
Amazing thick lather. Thanks, check it out.
