Face Lathering: A New Phenomenon?

takeshi said:

^ This. Don't confuse face lathering and the popularity of shorter lofts. They're two entirely separate things.


Because a shorter loft isn't necessary. My preferred brush for face lathering has a much higher loft than most here would probably recommend.

It's like the "board for soap, badgers for cremes" meme. If that's what works for you, great but it's not the fact that it's presented as.

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ANNNNNNND we have a winner. This is precisely my point. Obviously face lathering has been around for a very long time, its not new. Look at all the posts, stories, and pictures from above.

I'm also pretty sure that our forefathers could figure out how to make a short loft dense brush. Now my real question is, whats up with our current obsession with short loft, dense brushes?!?!

edgerunner said:

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Hard to believe Popeye fell for that!
And I bet Whimpy was a bit upset when he got back from lunch!

edgerunner said:

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Thank you for indulging me in this Socratic journey, but I think it was well worth it. Sometimes you need a little demonstrative evidence to make your case.

The lesson from this story is... spinach works. That's how male brains work... (at least mine).

ilpadrino said:

I'm also pretty sure that our forefathers could figure out how to make a short loft dense brush. Now my real question is, whats up with our current obsession with short loft, dense brushes?!?!

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Who knows..trends are hard to figure out. Shaving has a strong "collector" aspect now. Maybe price and availability figure in. Boars were unpopular a few years ago, looking through the archive,..now they are the bee's knees. Give it 2 more years and long loft floppy synthetics may be the brush d'jour

takeshi said:

^ This. Don't confuse face lathering and the popularity of shorter lofts. They're two entirely separate things.


Because a shorter loft isn't necessary. My preferred brush for face lathering has a much higher loft than most here would probably recommend.

It's like the "board for soap, badgers for cremes" meme. If that's what works for you, great but it's not the fact that it's presented as.

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+1 - I have tried the "short" loft path and I keep going back to higher lofts with wide knots...

edgerunner said:

The face lathering version I meant earlier was putting a dab of shaving cream on a wet brush and then rub it on one's face, including adding some water if necessary.

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I even use this method when I use Barbasol in the can. It's alot less messier and quicker when I'm pinched for time.

Clayton

dundak said:

Who knows..trends are hard to figure out. Shaving has a strong "collector" aspect now. Maybe price and availability figure in. Boars were unpopular a few years ago, looking through the archive,..now they are the bee's knees. Give it 2 more years and long loft floppy synthetics may be the brush d'jour

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The boars aren't as popular as you might think... It's just a very vocal minority who make it seem so... Look at the poll of preferred brushes currently running.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is anything at all wrong with preferring boar over badger, or horse or vice-versa... It's all about what works for the individual, what the individual LIKES the feel of and performance of... I'm simply stating that a quick browse through the archives would give you a much different picture "in favor of boar" than what the *reality* of what people are *actually* prefer/use is.

retiredguns said:

I'm sure back in the day they appreciated and practiced variety as well. My Grandpa used to have a chunk of soap, brush and a straight on the counter. He would wet the soap and brush, mash it around on the soap and face lather. Then he would proceed to shave and always included a could weepers to make sure he was still alive!

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My father (a WII veteran) was the same way. For the most part, he just used soap, a brush and a razor. He did have an Old Spice Mug, but I do not recall ever seeing him use it.

For me, it depends on the product. I like to use a soft badger hair brush with Prosaso/Bigelow Cream, but I prefer to face lather with a boar bristle brush when I use soap.

BTW, Semper Fi brother and great picture of Chesty as avatar.

I got an Old Spice gift set with a mug and a puck of soap and a brush for Christmas, probably in 1975 or so. Instructions said to wet the brush and soap with hot water, load the brush with lather and slap it on the face. It was the only way I ever knew, until I came here and found people whipping up billowing clouds of lather in their bowls. Tried it that way. Went back to the basics after a few months.

As for loft, it doesn't seem to matter. But I generally prefer a shorter loft and a smaller brush these days.

Not really, I would say it is as old as wetshaving.

Al raz.

my19 said:

I got an Old Spice gift set with a mug and a puck of soap and a brush for Christmas, probably in 1975 or so. Instructions said to wet the brush and soap with hot water, load the brush with lather and slap it on the face. It was the only way I ever knew, until I came here and found people whipping up billowing clouds of lather in their bowls. Tried it that way. Went back to the basics after a few months.

As for loft, it doesn't seem to matter. But I generally prefer a shorter loft and a smaller brush these days.

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Sounds like you're saying that the instructions had you build a lather in the mug and then apply it to your face. If so, that's what would be considered bowl lathering. The main difference in what I do is loading the brush and moving to another container to build the lather rather than in the mug or container that held the product. But everybody face lathers to some degree whether you're a painter or working the already made lather into your beard.

I should add that I've got a few OS mugs that hold soap (including the original OS soap) and I use them to load the brush and move to a bowl. The mugs are too small and lather gets everywhere when you build in their mugs. Now, if all you're doing is loading your brush from the mug and then transferring to your beard to build lather, that's face lathering.

ilpadrino said:

I think we need a standard definition of face lathering. In your post if you wouldn't mind, state what you consider face lathering to be. For me face lathering is when I rub some Arko directly on my face and take my brush and create lather on my face; nowhere else--a strict constructionist I guess you'd say. .

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Technically, that's considered "face lathering with a shave stick".
You can also face lather off a puck, which involved loading the brush and then immediately going to the face to make lather. And frankly, there's a spectrum between face lathering and bowl lathering, it's not necessarily an either/or proposition.

ilpadrino said:

I think you all are right. Which goes to my second question, why didn't they have brushes with shorter lofts better suited to the job? Or did they and for some reason you just dont see as many of them survive the wear and tear?

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Most likely it's a question of market demand and marketing/advertising by the manufacturer. In the old days of dad and grand dad around WW2 the priorities of the houshold bugdet where a little different. I'm not sure what's the cheapest 2 band badger brush but for sure these easily go over $100. In those time real badger had already been something really nice.

I'm not sure how much strong backbone hairs with soft tips can be yielded from one badger but definately the supply is less than the regular hair type.

With all the discussions about M&F Blonde badger, Semogue SOC, Simpson Chubby 2-band, Shavemac D01 2-band, there is a certain hype about the backbone and which brush provides the most. Preferences change over time and maybe just a regular brush creating some decend leather out of a shave stick for a quarter was all 95% of shavers cared for. At that time it was a necessity for a cheap price and not a luxury product.

In former times everyone used DE blades then came cartridges, first with two blade, then three, four, five and I think I have seen Leslie Nielson using a ten balde cartridge razor in some movie. Must have been a prototype from a secret lab.. Anyway his face was a little small and manouverability was not the best. I'm sure he also went back to DE.

I am sure people have been face lathering for a long time, but that doesn't mean that bowl lathering isn't the "Traditional" method (I don't know one way or the other, nor does it really matter).

Started with bowl. Now strictly face.