Please remind me of good materials and dimensions for a shaving bowl

Tried today to make lather in a tea cup 9 cm diameter and it was small,lather just wanted to jump out of it.
The ikea catalogue has some ceramic and porcelain with 12-15cm diameter.Are these ok?I suppose glass and plastic are a no no.
Any other cheap stuff you can propose?I use only shaving cream by the way.

Have a nice shave

Panos

My bowl is about 13cm round and about 10 cm deep. It's an antique clay potted piece I found at a junk shop for 75 cents.

It's fairly thick and holds the heat well. I like old stuff like all my Gillettes..

Lather bowl.

A lather bowl should be 4.5in to 5.5in diameter, 1.5 to 2.5in tall, with a non-white glazed interior so you can see the lather develop; crockery or stoneware to retain heat, Cheap, $2-$5 at Wal-mart, Target, K-mart, etc. Avoid 'purpose made' shaving bowls/mugs --they're a poor value and most are unsuitable.

Most 'purpose made' soap bowls offered by shaving vendors (C&E, EJ, and the like) are too small and overpriced, IMO. Many of them are quite attractive and can be quite high quality; I just find them to be inadequate for the task. The exception are some of the offerings by potter-artisans who make scuttles and bowls for the on-line wet shaving community.

The other exceptions are soap bowl/containers offered by some brands of triple-milled shave soaps where the container is sized and specifically made for their product. These are best used to hold a cake of soap and are not used as a 'lather bowl'. The appropriate use for these is to hold the soap. In use, the user loads the brush on the soap held in the bowl, then builds the lather directly on the face. The bowl is really too small for any other usage.

I've been quite satisfied with a bowl and find most mugs to be somewhat confining.

HTH.

-- John Gehman

I just ordered myself a scuttle from Georgetown Pottery - but while I'm waiting for it I picked up a massive soup-bowl sized mug from a thrift store for 99 cents. Its about 6 inches wide, maybe 3 inches deep, and quite thick and heavy. I think it'll tide me over.

I just realized I need to convert to cm - ok 6 inches is about 15 cm, and 3 inches is 7.5 cm or so.

Austin