Castle Forbes issues

I like Castle Forbes. Love the smell of the lavender, love the consistency. Seems slick and looks good in videos I've seen.
But for the life of me I can't get the lather explosion I've read everybody else gets with this product. I've tried more water, less water, bowl lathering, face lathering, different brushes, but nothing seems to get me to the sweet spot.
Guide me.

What kind of brush are you using?

I've tried a Plisson, a Parker silver tip, and a DaVinci 293 silver tip.

I use CF Lavender also, but I haven't encountered that problem. What I do with mine, once my brush is nice and wet, I remove excess water and place a nice amount of cream in the middle of my brush. I push the cream far enough and gently in the middle. I then work the brush inside my bowl and voila.

Maybe a bit more cream will do the trick.

More product.

Roderick said:

More product.

Click to expand...

++++1

Try taking some of the cream in your fingertips and massaging onto your face. Then load your brush as lather as usual.

It's always possible you got a bad batch. Sometimes the cream "turns" during shipping. I've had this happen with CF Lime once.

Use a small whisk or hand beater to stir up the cream, gently but well.
then use generous amount of product with distilled water.
Is there a batch code on the tub or box?

What's the water like where you live? If you have hard water, that may be the problem. Otherwise, use more product like everyone says.

The water in my area is hard. I use distilled water to soak my brush and to build the lather. I have no problems getting quality lather from any product. Until I switched to distilled water, my lather was awful.

hrfdez said:

I use CF Lavender also, but I haven't encountered that problem. What I do with mine, once my brush is nice and wet, I remove excess water and place a nice amount of cream in the middle of my brush. I push the cream far enough and gently in the middle. I then work the brush inside my bowl and voila.

Maybe a bit more cream will do the trick.

Click to expand...

This method works great for me also.

I will try using more product. I've been swirling the brush in the container 15-20 times, I will try more..
I think my water is pretty average, never had issues with hard or soft water before.

I lather it like a soap, in the container. I don't count the swirls. It's ready when it's ready. When the brush is properly loaded, I start face lathering. If it needs more water, I dip the brush in some hot water and keep on chooglin'. 100% of the time, it works every time.

How do you know when the brush is ready exactly?

Baseball observer said:

How do you know when the brush is ready exactly?

Click to expand...

It's instinct from years of use. The brush just has a "full" look to it. It's not an exact science, and it's not unusual for me to have to make some adjustments as I go. Sometimes I'll start face lathering, and it won't be giving me what I need, so I'll go back and load the brush some more. Or maybe it's starting out too dry, so I'll dip the bristles in some water. After a while, you get a feel for a product, and can gauge its performance pretty well. Keep working on it. You'll get it. Either that, or you'll give up in frustration and move on to a different product that works better for you. But really, CF isn't that difficult to get right. It's just that the density makes it a bit more finicky than softer creams. Once you dial it in, though, it's a great performer.

I got my best results from CF by using a little more product.

Figured it out: needed more water in the brush, which allows the brush to pick up more/better lather from the tub. Whip it up in the bowl and have more than enough for a 3+ pass shave.
I know I've picked up enough on the brush when I see it frothing just a bit in the tub while swirling the brush.
I tried face lathering but prefer bowl lathering, it's easier for me to see how well the lather is developing to add more product or water.

Excellent. How do you like it now?

It is a great product.
The right amount of water on the brush froths in the container quickly. Then the product mixes in the bowl quickly. Easier for me to see in the bowl than face lathering.
Leaving more water on the brush allows the brush to pick up the product easily. The drier brush in the container was a little bit of a struggle.
Smells great, slick and thick.