Lather building woes

Interesting... I must have just been lucky. I used a brush for the first time ever this morning, and had no problems building loads of lather. (I'm using Florena as well.) I just poured the water out of the mug, leaving it wet inside, shook the brush once, dabbed a half inch of cream onto the end of it and whipped things up for about 2 minutes. I had more than enough for three passes, I probably could have done five if I'd wanted.

charleton said:

Based on this, I'd suggest to anyone having lather trouble to try adding more water -- a lot more -- than you think you'll need.

Click to expand...

One of the things you'll find is that every cream seems to have a different water/cream ratio for that "sweet spot". What I've been doing is making MANY practice runs with a cream before I ever try to shave with it. (Maybe this is really just an excuse to play with lather and a brush, but well.. )

Anyway, what I like to do is this... Start out with a little cream and start whipping. Keep a good eye on the look, and more importantly, feel (rub between fingers). Keep adding "shots" all about the same amount of water and whipping it in. Try to make note when the cream is at it's slickest and about how much water you've put in. Once the cream has been oversaturated, I dump it out and start over. After building a good lather 3 or 4 times with the same cream I have a pretty good sense of how much water it needs. Then I can usually hit it right off from the start...