PannaCrema Nuavia Passaround - round 2

The second lather was an improvement from the first but I'd try it a little drier as well.

What I do is soak the brush then shake the brush out with four to five good shakes. This usually removes 95% of the water in the brush so you're starting with a very dry brush. You can always add water but you can't take it out. I then take the brush to the lather and start circling it. After I get a bit of a paste on the brush I add about four drops of water and circle it some more. You'll see the thick soap forming on the end of the brush, then four more drops and more circling. It should look like a gel like paste on the lower 3/4 inch of the brush. Once I'm at this stage I'm ready to face lather. I wet my face with warm water and take the brush to it finishing the lathering on my face. The result is a thick rich lather that doesn't contain a ton of air. With the water I'm going for just enough and nothing more.

Give it a try and see what happens.

dfoulk said:

The second lather was an improvement from the first but I'd try it a little drier as well.

What I do is soak the brush then shake the brush out with four to five good shakes. This usually removes 95% of the water in the brush so you're starting with a very dry brush. You can always add water but you can't take it out. I then take the brush to the lather and start circling it. After I get a bit of a paste on the brush I add about four drops of water and circle it some more. You'll see the thick soap forming on the end of the brush, then four more drops and more circling. It should look like a gel like paste on the lower 3/4 inch of the brush. Once I'm at this stage I'm ready to face lather. I wet my face with warm water and take the brush to it finishing the lathering on my face. The result is a thick rich lather that doesn't contain a ton of air.
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I'm right there with most of your method for my "everyday" loading technique (I only stray away for trials or after troubles).

dfoulk said:

With the water I'm going for just enough and nothing more.

Give it a try and see what happens.

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Here's where I usually differ from your method. I started wetshaving with drier lathers, not knowing that I added too little water. Now I look for sheen and feel for cushion/glide. I'll try even drier for tomorrow's shave, but that first lather had little water added to a well-shaken synthetic brush.

Review from round two coming soon.

Very interesting posts. It seems to me like Nuavia's lather can't be judged by its looks that easily. Kind of like Meissner Tremonia, the opposite being Haslinger.
5 more to go and I'll know first hand.

In my second round with Blue and Red I tried cold water shaving. I usually get an irritation-free shave with the trade-off of more stubble left with cold water. I'm not claiming this to be true for everyone else as YMMV. This weekend was CRAZY busy supporting our town's fundraiser (Lion's Club NTPA tractor pull). I did get a shave in every day, but didn't have time for pictures yesterday before service.

Yesterday: Nuavia Blue must have taken water from the previous shave because I only measured 0.8 gram change. I certainly didn't skimp on loading and used as much as other soaps which normally take 2.5g for a soap with PC Nuavia consistency (we have HARD water). I actually loaded so much that I felt guilty over using that amount of a borrowed soap. Anyway, my second round with blue was much better. I used the same "modified Marco method" as with the Red and had a thinner lather than the first round with Blue. Sorry, again, no pics of Blue in round two. Shave log notes:


You will read that the shave was "okay" because I still had some irritation and tightness. It was better than round one with noticably less irritation AFTER and substantially less irritation DURING the shave. However, I am NOT getting this irritation with Red so I'm still operating under the assumption that an ingredient (fragrance ?) in Blue is messing with me.


This morning was a pretty nice shave with Red. Starting with 647.2g I only calculate 1.5g gone:




Again, this was using cold water. Lather pic of my second pass:


[MENTION=73656]dfoulk[/MENTION] [MENTION=52339]MrDentini[/MENTION] This IS thin by my standards, but it worked great for me.


From my shave notes:

For the next two days I will try a drier load than shave one, much drier than round two, as suggested. I will also return to hot water shaving. In addition, I will change my blade (early). I only had 2 shaves on the GSB when I started Nuavia, yielding 6 shaves total on a blade that usually lasts 8-11. I have NOT decided on whether to do round three with both soaps or just use Red for the remainder of my time with the box.

So far my summary is that Nuavia is an excellent veggie soap, certainly the best that I have tried. It yields a wonderfully creamy lather with great sheen, no foamy bubbles and good results. However, I need some more time to discern if it beats my favorite tallow soap, AoS (Valobra). I find AoSt to have more residual slickness and it never leaves my skin overly tight. I did get BBS cheeks on every single Nuavia shave and had no problems on either my chin transition or my most troubled spot (queue dark and mysterious music), the swirl on my neck. That's a treat. Nuavia handled both areas with zero problems. I think that I've about talked myself into going both days with Red, just to put it head-head against AoSt. I have 15 hours to decide.

Still too wet of a lather for me. I'm not going for thin myself but more of a thicker paste like lather. To me the bubbles in the lather are a sign of too much water. You're still going to get great shaves from this soap but you're leaving some of the performance behind.
Load it like you hate it, use a lot more soap and see what happens.

I agree. Really wet and drippy lather has less cushion. Shake your brush out before you load it and add water slowly as you build your lather on your face or in your bowl. It'll start off like spackle and then as you add water it will start to build into a fluffier, thicker lather. Once you start to get the fluffy lather, you're ready to roll.

[MENTION=73656]dfoulk[/MENTION] [MENTION=65180]IMightBeWrong[/MENTION]. Thicker than this?

View attachment 676019
View attachment 676020

My brush after I picked up some soap



The first pass, the soap is so thick I can actually layer it on top of itself and see the distinct layering. You can't do that with a wet lather.



The brush before the second pass lather



The second and third passes looked about the same lather wise. Here's the soap on the razor after part of the second pass


It easily rinses right off under the faucet but it's not falling off on it's own.

here's my razor after the third pass.


I wanted to see how much soap I could get it to hold. It held the entire pass without dropping anything.

This razor is a ATT SE1 on a LA Shaving BBS-1 handle

Thanks, David. Lol, we must have gone to experiment at the same time. For round 2.5 I started with 649.2g of Blue:



The instructions call for a well soaked brush with the water dripped out of it. Going past that for the drier load I used a well-squeezed Savile Row 3324 brush and loaded over a minute. This made about 3x the number of swirls as listed in the included instructions:
View attachment 676078

Brush loading:

Rount 2.5 Blue continued. Resulting lather was as thick as toothpaste:

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Lather left in the brush after first pass applied:



The lather stuck to the razor, like in your pic. I didn't think to get a picture until I dipped all the lather in the sink:

Weird, the pictures showed in the editor but didn't post.

NyquistRate said:

Round 2.5 Blue continued. Resulting lather was as thick as toothpaste:

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I guess that "thick" was an understatement. This was so thick that my razor wanted to stick to my face. Protection was enormous and I didn't feel the blade for most of the one-pass shave. I actually had to check and verify that I hadn't removed the blade (I was already planning on swapping it). However, everything has a tradeoff. Because the lather was SO sticky, glide suffered. I didn't dare touch-up an area where lather was already removed. That pic with the lather in the sink was from three dips of the razor in water. It likely would have held half of that pass without falling, but I wasn't making an effort to keep it on. I don't have a BBS on the cheeks this time b/c I usually make With-Across-Against the grain passes. Skin feels smooth and soft with a slight tightness. It is much less irritated than the first shave with Blue. Of course, I've only made one pass instead of all three. This was a neat experiment. It also confirmed my concern about Blue . . . I can't use it. My face was irritated as soon as I lathered. So, I will be using Red the remainder of this pass-around. It's okay as I prefer that scent anyway.

And a few shots to (hopefully) capture how thick the lather was that remained on my neck:

NyquistRate said:

And a few shots to (hopefully) capture how thick the lather was that remained on my neck:

View attachment 676117View attachment 676118

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That looks very thick and kind of sticky, like you said above. The picture of the lather in the sink looks like melting soft serve. That said, the soap and lather looks like they have quite a range depending on how much water you use. The trick appears to be dialing it in to you personal preference.

Your excellent pictures are really telling quite a story!!

Grundi said:

That looks very thick and kind of sticky, like you said above. The picture of the lather in the sink looks like melting soft serve. That said, the soap and lather looks like they have quite a range depending on how much water you use. The trick appears to be dialing it in to you personal preference.

Your excellent pictures are really telling quite a story!!

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I agree that Nuavia has a big range of water acceptance. You certainly could taylor it to your lather preference. As for the pictures, you're too kind, Grundi. I really liked what Benjamin [MENTION=108263]rockclimber[/MENTION] was doing in his 50+ thread and followed his lead with pics of applied lather rather than just brushes of lather porn. Seeing the actual lather on the face just made so much sense. My apologies to everyone that had to look up my nose.

That looks like a really good lather to me. Mine is a little bit wetter than that and feels very slick and protective at the same time. Do you have a different razor with an open comb to try perhaps? I think you're so close to a perfect shave just by looking at the pictures. So close!

Yeah, when I make the lather that thick I usually tend to get a better shave and it really lets the qualities of the soap shine. My face felt great after that shave and it still does a few hours later. I sometimes go with a little more water but not much more and not nearly what you were showing in your earlier pictures. This isn't a recipe for just this soap as I do the same thing with all of my soaps.

The lather in your later photos looked great.

I generally add just a tiny bit more water than that for personal taste. I am very much a proponent of building the lather by adding water rather than using the Marco Method. And yes, Nuavia is outstanding with how much water it can accept. Regardless of how you like your lather, it can perform quite well if not excellent. I find adding just a bit more than the above gets it perfect for me.