Lather difficulties

Hello all

I Have difficulties to make a good lather, I never now wether my lather is too dry or too watery, I don't see the turning point, but at one moment it's too dry, and later it's too watery, but I don't know when to stop adding water

Does anybody have a trick on how to find the ideal turning point?

Have you tried this method for making lather? It put me on the fast track.

Keep us posted.

I'm reading the article right now, and I'll try it tomorrow, thanks for the link, I'll post my results later

A great resource is watch the Mantic videos on building lather. Seeing what proper lather looked liked helped me a lot.

verminisjk said:

Hello all

I Have difficulties to make a good lather, I never now wether my lather is too dry or too watery, I don't see the turning point, but at one moment it's too dry, and later it's too watery, but I don't know when to stop adding water

Click to expand...

Have you ever made mayonnaise from scratch?
Start thick really... add *very* little liquid, almost paste like at first. Once you have an emulsion then add a little more... Slooooowly... Whip, rinse, lather and repeat until done.

Sorry could not resist but the same principles apply.

I start off by soaking the brush in hot water while i shower. Then i flick out most of the water and swirl the brush in the tub of cream. As you swirl the brush in the bowl or on your face you'll notice the lather to be dry, simply add a drop or two of hot water to the brush. Continue lathering and adding water if need be. Once you have a dense, creamy lather, stop adding water. The lather should be able to hold its own weight and be able to form peaks. See how you go with that.

j6ppc said:

Have you ever made mayonnaise from scratch?
Start thick really... add *very* little liquid, almost paste like at first. Once you have an emulsion then add a little more... Slooooowly... Whip, rinse, lather and repeat until done.

Sorry could not resist but the same principles apply.

Click to expand...

That's the thing; and that's where I went wrong. For months. I thought it was supposed to be the same thing as beating eggs. Boy was I wrong.

It can be a very fine line for some between generating a whipping motion, and a stirring motion. The more whipping of a lather one does, the lighter and thinner it will become, because with every pass of the brush, you are injecting air into the lather.

Ymmv - as always.

Duggo said:

It can be a very fine line for some between generating a whipping motion, and a stirring motion. The more whipping of a lather one does, the lighter and thinner it will become, because with every pass of the brush, you are injecting air into the lather.

Ymmv - as always.

Click to expand...

So, I guess I'll just try to stir instead of whipping the hell out of my cream.

Well, yesterday I add a lot of water (it was like a bubble bath) just to picture myself what "too much water" was, and I was actually surprise as this bubble bath was a better lather than my previous "not so good(IMO)" lather. So today I did my lather with a little more water than my previous (to the bubble bath) lathers. It didn't change a thing, so I was kind of desperate. I finally managed (while I was thinking at all the posts I read and all the videos I saw) to get a good looking lather. So my problem was the time spent on building the lather. So, I applied the lather on my face, but I still found it too thin (IMHO). What is the thickness my lather should have? Should I be able to see my skin behind it? (I'm used to canned goo, witch is really thick. Is my proraso supposed to be as thick as canned goo?). Another issue is the quantity of lather. I use more than an almond size of cream, and I can't hardly use it for 2 passes. The third passe is on virtually no lather ( I do 1 passes at this stage of my learning, but I tried twice to do a BBS and I needed to reopen my tube for the 2 remaining passes). Thanks for the help so far

Think about the function av lather:

1. To hold water so the hair of you beard is softened

2. To lubricate the skin so the razor can glide smoothly

To expand these concepts:

How many centimeters of lather do you need when shaving? I know a shaving bowl that is brimming over with lather and a face that looks like a foamy Father Christmas looks satisfying, but your beard is no more than a millimeter or two long so how much lather do you need?

You need water in the lather to lubricate well. If your razor drags on your face it is probably because the lather is too dry. I found learning the process of making lather more difficult than actually shaving with a DE razor.

This is how I lather up:

I use a Vulfix 2235 brush* and Tabac hard soap. I soak the brush in a mug of hot water and drip a tablespoon (circa 15 ml) of hot water onto the surface of the soap. The soap and brush soak while I am having a shower. I empty the hot water out of the mug, shake the water out of the brush, refill the mug and dip the brush in the mug (this makes it nice and hot again). I shake the brush until no more water comes out of it (four or five shakes) and whirl the brush around on the surface of the soap. I whirl and swirl until a pasty lather grows on the surface of the soap. I then apply this to my face. I dip the brush into the mug of hot water, but only a few millimeters of the tips of the bristles and work the lather on my face. I then repeat the last part several times adding water gradually until there is an acceptable lather, and finally "bend" the bristles to lather my upper lip and upper sideburns and lay down the brush. Now it is time to shave....

*I find this brush a bit floppy for hard soap and can't really reccommend it for this purpose. I have a Shavemac 177 on order.

Thanks

I was used to the "santa" lather with canned goo. I'm using cream with a stiff omega boar brush, could that be an issue?

a good brush helps but it can be done with a boar brush just a little more work, I just got my first expensive brush and wow what a difference.

do you by chance know if you have hard or soft water? that would make a bigger difference, perhaps try some distilled water in a squirt bottle then you can add just a little at a time

Hi

Actually, I have water so hard, you couldn't cut it with a straight razor. Bottomline, my water is kind of really really hard. Is there a way to soften the water (apart from taking bottled water)? Or are there creams that works well with hard water?

I got hard water too, there are some ways to soften it either by adding something to it or filtering it depending on your situation. I have found creams are easier to lather with the hard water but with either soap or cream I have to work the brush considerably and add water slowly. I used to have soft water where I lived prior so it was quite an adjustment but now that I have it down it is no problem at all from any type of soap or cream.

OK, thanks
I have a water filtering system, but it's in my kitchen, and I'm kind of lazy to go there, have the water boiling (with my electric kettle that doesn't work properly) and so on, so I guess I'll work more on my cream with my bathroom water. Thanks for the advice.

What does "considerably" means, translated into time? 3 minutes or so?

I also am an Aqua-Hobbiest... you can get products created for fish tanks to lower hardness of water... if you wanna go that route... but it may be more expensive... maybe try rain water (if it rains where you are)

verminisjk said:

OK, thanks
I have a water filtering system, but it's in my kitchen, and I'm kind of lazy to go there, have the water boiling (with my electric kettle that doesn't work properly) and so on, so I guess I'll work more on my cream with my bathroom water. Thanks for the advice.

What does "considerably" means, translated into time? 3 minutes or so?

Click to expand...

yeah 3-4 minutes is about right, but I will say as my brush AD has been kicking in I found some of the better brushes do help a good bit now whether they are worth the money just to save 3-4 minutes of swirling- ehh

verminisjk said:

I'm using cream with a stiff omega boar brush, could that be an issue?

Click to expand...

It might be. I've found that when I press down with some force when using one of those brushes that I develop the lather a lot faster, no matter which cream I'm using. Try that next time. Don't mash it, just splay the bristles a little.

What cream do you use?