Am I hurting my brush?

I have started NOT soaking my badger brush before I load it with RR croap. I quickly wet it, shake out the water and load. I feel I get a better load but I have noticed some shedding.

Experts, what say you?

That's probably Not causing shedding. You don't really need to soak your brush to the max, it's just what a lot of us do

Badger brushes really don't need to be soaked. What you're doing should be fine. You might experiment a little by wetting it a little longer before you load, but unless you beat the hell out of it when you load, your shedding issues are probably attributable to something else. Is it a new brush?

I only soak my brush for MAYBE a minute before I start building up a lather. It might just be that your brush is a shedder. What kind of brush are you using?
I don't normally use creams but from what I understand, you typically do not need as much water to whip up what you need. Whatever works for you should be fine. Shaving brushes have been around long before people had places like this to talk about the various techniques - you just did it.

Good luck and don't think too much!

The brush is two months old

It is this one

My experience has been that new badger often seem somewhat water resistant and benefit from soaking until that characteristic goes away. I would think a month would have been long enough. I have noticed an improvement on many of them after a few uses.

YMMV

I would think after that much time it should not be shedding

It never shed when I soaked it. Guess I am going to have to go back to soaking.

I thoroughly wet my badger brushes, but soak my boar brushes.

I don't bother to soak mine now, either the badgers or my boar one.. under the water for a few seconds with hot water if that much, and then face lather.

I used to soak them for a good 2-3 minutes if not more, and in time, I just didn't see a difference.

What I can do is run the water on the brush while I get my face wet, then swirl on the soap, and then face lather.

They all sheded at first when they were new, some that worried me for a while, but it stopped and lately I rarely lose any hair on any of the brushes.

I always let my brush soak while washing my face. It shed some hairs in a couple of shaves later none