Eureka!

[Gilgamesh2003]

My fellow newbies, if you use soaps you must watch this lathering video. I ran into it in a thread in the soaps forum and it BLEW MY MIND. I've read all the guides and watched Mantic's wonderful videos, but somehow Zach just really put everything together for me. He makes a few points:

- There's a difference between foam and cream. Foam is the bubbly, airy stuff that comes off the soap the minute you start loading the brush. You want to ignore this - as he says, it's not for shaving.

- You want to load your brush with liquefied soap, which should look thick and iridescent, like shaving cream. You want to see no bubbles, just thick, creamy goodness.

- Zach uses a lot of water - he takes the boar brush right out of a cup and starts in on the soap, without shaking or squeezing, and he holds the soap bowl at an angle that conserves the water but lets the foam drip off.

I went in just now and tried this with some Saint Charles Shave Barbershop, one of my favorite soaps. I spent a lot longer than I usually do loading the brush until I had the rich cream that Zach shows in the video. I could not BELIEVE the results, it was like a totally different substance! I used warmish water and lathered onto my dry face and it generated clouds of thick, opaque lather that I literally couldn't wipe off. I had to rinse a couple times before it was all gone. Incredible!

I thought the SCS soap was pretty protective and luxurious before, but apparently I had just been using the airy dregs. I thought I would share this here since the video really clicked for me, and it might work for some other inexperienced wet shavers. I would never have thought a few weeks ago that I would be getting really excited and happy about generating an excellent lather - what a world!

[metzmo]

Glad you finally got it right! SCS soaps, particularly the original formula, are easy to use and give you as good a lather as you can get with any soap on the market IMO. The creams are great but require a dialing in with the gradual increase of water as you go and a good deal of whipping. If you start using the creams you will find them at least as good as the soaps. Just don't try to get a quick, hastened result. Whip and add. Squeeze out the lather when you think you are close and check the result. Now that you know what a good lather is you should be able to determine when you get a great result with the creams.

[Teiste]

Good video,thanks for posting it!

[mmack66]

Seems like you could avoid having to let all that foam drip off by not using so much water. I face lather though, so I just load up the brush.

[Dadof3]

Seems like a waste of soap. I face lather as well when using soap...I'd much rather spend the time with the brush massaging the beard when creating the lather instead of it falling down the drain. JMHO.

Paul

[Gilgamesh2003]

When I tried this method it wasted very little soap, although I was face-lathering. Just a few plops went in the sink, the rest went into the brush - much less than in the video. I tend to leave at least that much foam/lather in the bowl every time I shave anyway, so it didn't seem like a big issue.