You CANNOT make decent lather with six teaspoons of water ....

I notice that a lot of new shavers are posting here and in the Shave Clinic about having problems lathering. Frequently the issue turns out to be using too much water and being too stingy with the product. A recent post from a noob said he "swirled the brush on the puck" for about ten seconds to load the brush. They are not getting enough soap!

Additionally, posters here frequently describe soaps or creams as "thirsty", "lather bombs", "drinks water like crazy". For experienced latherers these terms may make sense, but they can, I think, be confusing to new shavers who have not developed a sense of what are really very fine nuances. Let's face it folks, they are not THAT different. Many of the top-end base creams are made by Creightons and no matter what the end vendor does to them differences in how they lather (among similar products, of course) simply will not be apparent to a new shaver trying to learn how to lather.

I even posted once that I was a better latherer before getting here and the folks who advocate being stingy with the product and adding a lot of water got me all screwed up! I had to backtrack to good lather habits. In a recent post someone said they used "6 teaspoons of water" to make their lather. I won't look it up because I do not want to embarrass him, but it is not the first time this has happened. One fellow a few months back posted he added about 3 tablespoons of water to his lather. When called on it he said he meant teaspoons. IMO even that is too much.

The issue is not that folks here are not good latherers, they are getting good results. And they do not intend to lead beginners astray, they want to help. The issue, I firmly believe, is that they are unfamiliar with the measures they are tossing about and getting way to specific with their 'recipes'. If you do not cook, in fact if you cannot cook well without resorting to the measuring spoons, may I humbly suggest ...

Go to the kitchen and get out your measuring spoons when posting water amounts!

When I read that post the other day where someone claimed to have used 6 teaspoons of water, I decided I had to do just that and clear up this confusion once and for all. So I got out the measuring spoons and the camera. And here is my conclusion.

You CANNOT make usable lather with any reasonable amount of lather product using 6 teaspoons of water. This is not an opinion, you don't need a chemist to come test your water, this is not related to 'shaving experience' or technique, and it is not a YMMV thing. I state this as a categorical. Nobody here can make a reasonable amount of lather with 6 teaspoons of water. You'd have to be making it in a bucket for 5 shavers to make it work.

I will show how to make proper lather after this, and I know I have not discovered nuclear fusion or anything, there are plenty of those posts around ... but the 6 teaspoon thing was ridiculous. So, off to the kitchen for my measuring spoons and an experiment with some Art of Shaving Sandalwood cream, a decent cream by any measure.



Let us begin. Below, you see the implements for this experiment; a wonderfully full silvertip brush by King1976 (forum member and vendor), the aforementioned cream, some measuring spoons, and 6 teaspoons of water in a plastic cup. For those of you who have been posting about using tablespoons and teaspoons and 'thirsty creams', take a quick look at that cup. That is what 6 teaspoons of carefully measured water actually look like.



To be consistent between batches, I used a 1/2 teaspoon measure for the cream, the 'standard' almond-sized dollop. Neither too stingy nor profligate with the cream, it's about what 85% of us use, I'm sure. I leveled it off with the back of a knife and made sure to get it all in the bowl and on the brush for both batches.

Both times I used my normal procedure, soak the brush, then do several vertical pumps to drop water out (do not flick it dry), then give the bristles a gentle squeeze. I would describe the brush as damp, not water laden. I worked the cream the first time for almost 4 minutes, as clearly using that much water would take considerable time if it even had a chance to work (it didn't). I added the water in 6 equal drips of a teaspoon each, working the cream between. What did I get?

I got exactly what I knew in advance I would get, I got soup. You could not get a decent shave with this stuff. See it running to the side of the bowl? Like melted ice cream.



Now, I don't claim to be a lather-meister or anything, and I'm certainly no smarter than anyone else here. I just cook a lot and I know what a teaspoon of water actually looks like. That's all. The only explanation I can come up with when I read about the amounts of water some of you say you are using is that you don't have a good handle on what the measurements you are tossing about actually are. Because you are not going to get a different result that the above if you actually use 6 teaspoons of water. So it is not that those of you posting this cannot actually lather, you are just being sloppy in your description of the 'recipe'. Get the measuring spoons out.

Here is the actual recipe. I cleaned everything up and started again. Same brush soaking, pumping, squeezing, cream measuring routine. I swirled for about 30 seconds, added 1/4 teaspoon-measured of water, swirled 30 seconds, added another 1/4 teaspoon-measured of water, swirled 30 seconds, and once more added another 1/4 teaspoon-measured of water, and swirled for about another 30 seconds, maybe a bit more. This was the lathery goodness that resulted. It was enough for at least a 7-pass shave.



Sorry for the cell phone pic, but you can tell that is a nice, stiff peak. Whipped cream. Here it is in the hand. Almost as dense as the canned goo, only much, much better stuff!



And the final test? I squeeze the lather from the brush onto the back of my hand for the touchup. Here it is on my hand upside-down. No watery bubbles when squeezing it out, the sign of a perfect lather. (there may be an air bubble or two, but they should not be weepy or watery).



Sum total of the water added to that 1/2 teaspoon of AOS Sandalwood? Less than a full teaspoon. A carefully measured 3/4 teaspoon. Now I admit you may like a lather somewhat runnier than what you see here, that definitely IS a YMMV thing. But nobody on this board could make a decent, shavable lather with a reasonable amount of product using 6 teaspoons of water. You just can't.

Interestingly many of the soap and cream vendors lather with a decent amount of their product, and not really very much water. Go see some of them. Here is a guy who knows how to do it. If you face lather, watch the part where he builds lather on his hand. If you bowl lather, skip to about the 2:20 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uSUF3RXvek


And here is Al from Al's shaving cream fame, same thing. Very reasonable amount of water, nowhere even remotely close to 6 teaspoons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekaDfTtOhRc


So, I'm sorry if I stepped on any toes, it was not my intention. But I see a lot of measurements thrown about here and in the clinic and I know the guy can make good lather and means to help. He just doesn't know his measurements! If you are going to write a 'recipe', please go to the kitchen and test it. Using measuring spoons. And it will be a big help to new latherers.

Well-played, John, thanks for the demo!!

Cheers!
-Greg

That was an incredible post, well done sir!

Great post. I use more water simply because I use more product. I tend to really load my brush, so I need a bit more water. Still I don't even come close to six teaspoons - that is a lot of water.

I soak my brush in hot water, shake it out, empty the shaving mug, add product, and whip up some frothy goodness easily. Too much water was my bane for a while.

I soak my brush in warm water, shake it out a bit, add about the standard almond sized amount of cream into my bowl. I swirl my brush in the bowl for a bit, add a little water as I think I need it. From there, I just eye ball it until it looks good and creamy.

Some people aren't good at measuring with their eyes. I work in a kitchen, someone told me our recipe is 2 tbsp of mayo in our coleslaw (though we don't have this slaw on our menu anymore lol). When they proceeded to measure it out of our tub that we have for putting it on burgers they easily took out 4 tbsp of mayo. I think really it wasn't anyone trying to steer anyone wrong, it was more just them not knowing exactly how much they added.

Either way thanks for the demo, interesting to see how much we actually use (I just dip the tips in my water basin a couple times heh). I would also comment that thanks to the first video you linked, that is where I got my bowl for the occasion that I want to bowl lather lol.

Great post and tutorial. The pictures of your lather at the end are superb!

6 teaspoons are equal to 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons are equal to 1 ounce

Nice post, John. I decided to run a quick, not overly scienific test to see approximately how much water I use (total). My recollection is that 1cc of water weighs 1g; if that's wrong, my calculations are off. I did check online, and 1 tsp=5cc, so 1 tsp should weigh 5g.

I used my PJ2, a medium brush Kim; some of my brushes are much larger (up to my CH2) so should hold more water.

I weighed the PJ dry, soaked it for my usual 5 minutes, then did my usual (For Cella), yoyo motion (per Marco), then reweighed it. I came up with 20g of water, which should be 4 tsp. I rarely ever need to add water or product.

For Mama Bear, I give I a gentle squeeze, so here is less water, but I usually add water a little at a time by just barely dipping the tips in water.

I trust my scale, accurate to better than .1g.

So I think I'mgetting slightly different results.

Just when I think I have a handle on making slick lather... back to the old drawing board.

On the rare occasion that the lather is just right, the razor shaves by itself. Such a good feeling...

Yesterday I had quite a sub-par shave with Omega (Proraso) cream. It was much better than I usually get but I had several weepers and a cut. Still, the razor burn was much milder and that made me happy. It just didn't feel slick... the razor didn't glide... so I had to help it with force. I added more water... and then some more... then eventually the lather didn't have enough lubricity.

Either it's too dry or too wet. I shave every other day, as the bbs shave lasts more than 24 hours. The bleeding and pain stop well before the next time and my face heals well enough.
I can make lather 10 different consistencies, in my palm, face or bowl... but I can't tell how well it shaves until I use an actual blade. And that doesn't happen often enough for me to learn the right ratio. I've been at this for months (gosh I'm such a slow learner)... I've practiced lathering far more product than I've used for shaving.

With soaps it's hard to tell how much product I use but with cream it's a bit more standardized. When I hydrate it enough so that it feels slick... well judging by the posts above and the videos... looks like I used way too much water.

I'm glad you guys liked it. I enjoyed it because I love the scent of that AOS Sandalwood cream.

I really was not trying to step on any toes, I hope I did not do so. But some of the verbal instructions given to new shavers trying to lather just makes me nuts. Glad it was well-received.

And as for the other big problem ... being too abstemious with the soap. When I hear a noob talking about a problem lathering soap, frequently I hear "I swirled the brush on the puck for ten seconds to coat the tips" .... Where are they hearing that? They are hearing it here, I'm afraid.

I get lather like you see in the photos in the OP when using Tabac, too. Just as thick, just as cushiony. I leave a little more water in the brush than when starting a cream, not much, just a little. I do the vertical pumps but not the squeeze.

Then I lather that bad boy for about a minute, upside down, over the scuttle. Every now and then I have to shake the lather off the brush into the scuttle, that's OK. I keep going until you get that creamy, thick but too dry coating on the brush, then scrape it all off the puck and work it in the scuttle with whatever lather I have deposited there.

Invariably, adding one, maybe two 1/4 teaspoons of water and I'm good to go. Lather explosion, but I get that heavy whipped cream stuff that sits up and barks at you. When I squeeze out for the touchups, same thing, no weepy, watery bubbles.

You gotta use soap for that. The fellow from the first video above on the cream has a good soap video here. I load even longer than he does. But watch how much soap he is using and how much water it needs. Again, if you face lather, watch him make lather in the hand, if you bowl lather, go to about 2:50 this time.

http://www.youtube.com/user/robbDV?blend=1&ob=5#p/u/0/kVaScfYHd0U


Honestly, hard/soft water may change this a bit, some products are definitely a little different when it comes to lathering technique, but this ain't a moonshot by any means. It will all look very much like this in terms of product and water. After learning how to lather some different products we can interpret some of the hyperbole with which we enthusiastically describe things. But differences will be relatively small and nuanced, and noobs just might not get our descriptions.

Use more stuff. Use less water. Work it a lot. Those are base principles we should be sharing with all new shavers. And we should recommend middle-of-the-road products to new shavers, too, IMNSHO. Tabac, Proraso or C.O. Bigelow, TOBS. Let them learn with stuff that is literally foolproof. Save the MWF and fancy stuff for after they get their shaving legs under them.

But the cardinal sin of lathering is trying to stretch too little product with more water. If you want to see how far you can take that as an advanced experiment, have fun with it. But don't preach it to new shavers. Most of us do say the right things. But I think sometimes some of us move the new shavers along to advanced stuff too quickly.

This is part of the reason I turned to facelathering in the shower! It seems to work best and if I make a bad batch, down the drain it goes and I try again! Great post!!

Captp, you could be getting a little different results, I'm not familiar with Cella. I'm also not sure I'm following your measurements. You are weighing a dry brush, then weighing it as you use it with the Cella and converting that to volume, yes? That should be accurate if you do your math right. Unless you measure the product it's hard to come to any conclusions, but you might be happier with a bit thinner lather and I can't tell how much Cella you use, and I'm just not familiar with it.

But, if I did not measure the cream or loaded my brush by dipping it into the tub, I could see 4 tspoons being workable. Remember there is some water in my brush, too when I start. You may just be getting the mix right at the start and not having to add any water? I am at the point where I can pretty much do a lather with the right amount of water in my brush at the start, too. I don't always build my lather the way I did above.

But I think it is safer to counsel new shavers to do it that way. Start with a fairly dry brush and add water a very little bit at a time and sneak up on it that way. Experience will let us hit it consistently right from the start, sounds like you are there.

Regardless, I see a lot of posts by noobs asking for help on their lather and 9 times out of ten they are not using enough product, are using too much water, or a combination of both. And I think they are getting that from reading some of our posts.

But how many teaspoons does it take to get your camera to focus?

(j/k - good post)

Nice post. Thank you. One can always learn better ways to make lather.

I found this post very helpful.

John, that's right. Weigh dry brush, zero scale out, soak and drain for Cella, then reweigh wet brush, giving me 20g/4 tsp. Cella is very thirsty, i.e. I needs more water than most other soaps. Should have gone back, and prep as I do for Mama Bear, where I gentle squeeze brush, possibly losing half or more of the water.

Based on some testing I did several months ago, I use about 1g of Cella per shave, give or take a little, maybe a quater gram. Larger brushes would take more water, but also more Cella for my 30 second load (my standard time for either soap), so I'm guessing the ratio of water to product is about the same (totally unscientific, but I'm betting fairly accurate)

Based on this, I'm probably pretty close to your measurements when I use MB, where I gently squeeze some watter out of the brush.

I didn't see captp's post but I had the same idea. Took 2 brushes (Omega 31064 boar and a 24mm super badger) that were bone dry, hadn't been used for a week minimum.
Weighed them dry / soaked for 1 min with a couple of agitations, then lifted and allowed to stop dripping / after a gentle squeeze / and after a firm squeeze. Converted weights in grams to teaspoons of water held.

Omega 31064:
After letting drip: 12g / 2.4 tsp
After gentle squeeze: 7g / 1.4 tsp
After firm squeeze: 5g / 1 tsp

24mm Super badger:
After letting drip: 21g / 4.2 tsp
After gentle squeeze: 6g / 1.2 tsp
After firm squeeze: 4g / 0.8 tsp

Note that a really aggressive squeeze doesn't remove much more water than a gentle one!

Now I generally give a moderate squeeze before going to the soap, meaning these brushes are loaded with 1-1.2 tsp of water. I get great results adding very little if any water (by dipping brush in sink or dribbling water on brush from tap.)

So in general I have to agree, 6 tsp is a huge amount to use in total, let alone on top of what the brush is holding.

However ... with TOBS cream I did get great results with the badger brush fully loaded (4.2 tsp) and swirling 3 to 4 times on the cream. I don't know how much cream was picked up, but it wasn't visible. So ... I think TOBS cream is up to the challenge you have laid down!

In my 6 plus months on B&B, this is THE BEST explaination on lather making!! Great job JC. A shot and a pint is in order for you.

CHEERS!


--T

At last I can retire!

Well played Sir!

jim said:

at last i can retire!

well played sir!

Click to expand...

rotflmao