Finished- Carnival contest # 2... CALLING ALL LATHERMEISTER'S

1. Run Georgetown scuttle under hot tap water, filling inner and outer bowl, then dump out water. (I like to think it’s removes that initial “chill”)
2. Proceed to refill inner and outer bowl with more hot water. Place in sink for heat-transferring goodness.
3. Choose brush of the day, run under warm tap water (seems to take to soaking better if I wet it a bit before placing in mug).
4. Fill coffee mug with same tap water, place brush in mug to soak.
5. Shower time! A good face wash being part of this experience, of course.
6. Get out, dry off, wrap towel around waist.
7. Dump water out of scuttle and then refill inner bowl with more hot water.
8. Squeeze “correct” amount of shave cream into bowl.
9. Remove brush from mug and gently squeeze out the excess water.
10. Give the lather a few swirls, add a little bit of water and then swirl some more. Repeat 3-5 times until lather is thick and slick!

I shave in the shower so everything's nice and soak-y.

1. I start by wetting down my brush

2. In my left hand I hold a bar of Neutrogena glycerin soap (which I use for my face). I then lather up the brush using circular strokes and pushed down to the middle of the hair. I can get a pretty good lather with just the Neutrogena. (This was a tip I got from Mantic.)

3. Now I pick out my cream for the day. I poke a little divot into the end of the lathery brush and squeeze in a nickel sized dollop of cream.

4. Using my left hand as my shaving mug, I build up a lather combining the glycerin soap lather and the lather from the shave cream. I don't usually have to add any water to make the lather. The glycerin adds a nice slickness to the pillowy foam of the shave cream.

5. I then apply the lather to my face, swirling it around to help soften and lift the whiskers.

6. Shave as indicated.

1)First I bring my water to a near boil from my hot pot. I pour a dribble onto my soap puck.
2)Next I fill my scuttle and lathering bowl up with the hot water and set them to the side.
3)Next I soak my brush in the sink with hot water
4)Take a shower.
5)Empty my lathering bowl and scuttle, refill the outer bowl of my scuttle.
6)Next I give my brush a few shakes and start working it into my soap puck for 1 minute.
7)Next I start building my lather in the lathering bowl, adding dribbles of water as needed.
8)Next I transfer all of the lather into my scuttle and lather up with nice, warm, creamy, lather,

Ah, the mornings are great!


DL

1. Run tap water until it is as hot as it gets.
2. Run brush under tap until wet, then place brush in mug and fill with hot tap water.
3. Drizzle a thin layer of water on soap puck and allow to stand.
4. Decrease temperature of tap water and splash my face while brush and soap soak (keep splashing water on face to keep it wet until lathering time).
5. Dump mug water and squeeze out brush, then dump water from soap puck into mug.
6. Begin charging brush on soap puck. Keep charging until puck has no more soap to give, and is very tacky.
7. Begin lathering in mug, adding water slowly until dense, creamy lather is formed. With my fairly floppy brush, this can take some time.
8. Apply lather to face in a swirling motion at first, then swithching to painting motion later. Leave this first lather on face for at least a minute before beginning to shave.

Simplified Face Lathering

I used Van der Hagen Deluxe and an Omega Professional Boar in this demonstration to show you how I easily face lather, and how quick it can be done!

Step 1:
First turn your faucet on just slightly so it drips and place your mug or bowl with soap under it to collect a few droplets of water. This helps soften the soap up and makes it easier to load the brush, however do not over soak you will be using those droplets!


Step 2:
Fill a mug, a cup or any device that allows the brush to stand freely with hot water and allow to soak for a few minutes.


Step 3:
This is about as saturated as you want the brush to be, dripping.

Give the brush a good squeeze now!


Step 4:
Start to swirl your brush on the puck, heres about 10 seconds worth you can see the brush has started to clump.

Continue to do so till the brush is fully loaded, take into account the Omega has a tall loft, so your brush may take less time to load.
This is the brush loaded, good for 3 or more passes.

Note brush is not erupting with later, like some of the photo's you see with bowl lathering.

Step 5:
Time to rub that brush into your face, give it a good scrub!
This is what the initial lather starts to look like, however DO NOT SHAVE WITH THIS.

Continue to scrub the face and do a "Mopping" motion from left to right on your face, you may or may not need to add some water. If you do need some water, just dip the very tips of the brush into your hot water from the mug/bowl/cup etc. where your brush was soaking.

Ready to Shave
Your labor of love is complete, in a few short minutes your face should look like this, with a thick non bubbly/foamy/translucent lather.


The same steps can be used with just about any soap, I use the same method with Williams, my go to soap, however it dries fast and doesn't make for a good demonstration.

I usually use a shave stick and face lather, so my routines are directed towards that practice.

Run water to hot, draw a partial sink filling, and also fill home assembled scuttle with hot water.

Place brush in water filled scuttle to soak and heat up.

Shower.

Squeeze brush, expelling most water so I'm basically starting with a damp brush.

On wet face, scuff shave stick to deposit a generous coating of soap on beard.

Build lather directly on face with brush.

Slightly dip brush tips in hot water in sink as needed. Continue lathering on face.

I lather on face for a minimum of 2 minutes, and always get a terrific lather.

Park brush in scuttle as I make a razor pass.

I add additional soap to beard at end of each pass, and leisurely build lather as above for each pass.

-- John Gehman

Jim said:

Post it anyway!

Click to expand...

Well...OK! My lathering method is based on the use of my Dirty Bird Pottery brush scuttle:

Before showering

1. Using an electric hot water kettle, fill the scuttle's "base" with boiling water and leave it uncovered.
2. Fill the top "brush pot" with hot tap water and soak brush.
3. The boiling water in the base is left to cool while showering.

After showering

1. Remove brush from brush pot, discard pot’s water, and squeeze out excess water from brush.
2. Build lather in bowl. (Option: face lather)
3. Transfer brush and lather from bowl to brush pot. (Option: after face lathering, place brush in brush pot and shave pass #1)
4. Place brush pot into base (to avoid spillage, remove excess water from base as required)
5. While lather warms, go about other personal preparations, YMMV. (Option: lather warms for pass #2)
6. Lather face for pass #1 (Option: lather warms for pass #2)
7. Repeat as required…..

I've been wetshaving for about 2 years now, and I've learned to be constructively lazy, using minimal effort to get a good shave. That said:

1) I shower and wash my face to soften up my stubble first.
2) Dry off, except the face, then rinse my brush (Savile Row 3120) with warm water
3) Squeeze the brush to get water out, then rub vigorously on the shaving soap. I rotate these days between Art of Shaving, Tabac, and QED USA glycerine.
4) Shave with Merkur HD loaded with Derby blade, 1 WTG pass, followed by a rinse, relather, and a XTG pass.
5) Rinse, alum block, then rinse again. I'm good to go! I tend not to need an aftershave, though some might.

I've been restricted to dorm bathroom shaving so far, so I'll have to adjust my technique when I get home for vacations.

1. Boil water in my microwave and let sit while I shower.
2. After shower (~10 minutes) bring shower stuff back to dorm room/throw on some sweatpants/grab shaving stuff (give water another 10 second shot in microwave and let brush sit in water while I walk back to bathroom)
3. Run the water in the sink until actual hot water comes out and let some of this hot water pool ontop of my soap puck.
4. Squeeze water out of brush, pour water off soap into lather bowl (stolen ceramic/clay? bowl from dining commons )
6. "Charge" brush with soap by running it across my soap puck roughly a dozen times, and start working on lather in separate bowl.
5. Add water as required and whip up a delicious frothy cup of shave grade-goodness

1)I run the brush under some hot water.
2)Swirl the brush onto the soap for about a minute (or until it's fully loaded).
3)I begin the face lathering process, which takes about another minute or two.
4)Then I shave, and I'm happy!

I heat my scuttle with water heated in a teapot shower while water in scuttle cools, wash beard with shampoo or soap to soften, then dump water from lather bowl into a finger bowl but leave hot water in scuttle. soak brush in finger bowl then whip up lather in the scuttle bowl, let my shaver head rest in finger bowl, lather and shave 3 passes then one pass search and destroy letting razor head rest in finger bowl while lathering or wetting my brush if needed from finger bowl. Return to shower to rinse.

well i'm only about a month and a half into my de journey, but here is what i have discovered so far:

1) i have a large soup-style mug that i have been using as my lather mug. i put it in the sink, close the drain, and let hot water fill the sink up above the mug. this warms the mug and makes for a great warm lather. i also put my brush in the mug and let it soak too.

2) while the mug is warming up, i hold a hot towel to my face for a good minute or so.

3) squeeze *most* of the water out of the brush, and dump *most* of the water out of the mug.

4) i lather the brush up with soap (col conk almond or williams, which happen to be the only two i've tried so far) till it's saturated. then, squeeze a small amount of c.o. bigelow cream into the bowl (about the size of my pinkie to the first knuckle)

5) start the vigorous lathering! i usually lather for about a minute or so, adding small amounts of water as necessary. i don't know how many of you out there are culinary-minded, but when the lather 'peaks' like eggs whipped for a meringue, it's ready.

6) at this point i have enough warm lather to last me 3 passes.

materials/equipment
-merkur 23c
-merkur blades (everyone says they aren't that great, i just haven't ordered any sample packs yet)
-brush from this kit. i'm guessing it's not that great, but it's working so far while i perfect my technique. (can anyone verify that this is pure or best badger?)
-cake of col conk almond
-cake of williams
-tube of c.o. bigelow cream
-a strong wrist for all that lathering!

Lathermeister ... probably not, but now someone can tell me what to improve



I normally first run hot water on a bowl to heat it up



Add my brush to it while I take a shower



I squeeze the brush a little bit and shake off some water before starting to swirl it in the shaving soap. Mmm, soap.



After maybe 30 s or so, the brush should be loaded with enough soap.



I then start building lather on my face. Initially gently so I won't loose the water in the brush. Then I go faster and also press the brush more against the skin to release more water.



After a while the later builds up nicely and the brush is loaded with lather.



And so am I

Well alrighty then...
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAwXXqpBA9g[/YOUTUBE]
I'm a bowl/face latherer type of guy it seems.

• The Gear: I use a small stoneware bowl and my '08 B&B essential brush. Lately, I've become totally hooked on glycerin soap. For this demo I'm using a super puck of Col. Conk's Amber.

• First thing I do is soak the brush in my bowl with hot water for a few minutes, while I'm taking a shower usually.
• After dumping out the bowl, I squeeze out my brush, fill my bathroom sink with hot water, and while palming the soap in my hand, I mash, drag, pump, and swirl the brush liberally on top of it until it is goo'd up.

• After I've loaded the brush with the soap in my hand I place it in the bowl and rub my beard with my hands.

• Now I work up a lather in my bowl for a bit and then face lather with the brush while I let the bowl float in sink full of hot water.

• Once I have huge amounts of foam on my face, I break from tradition and spackle my brush like I was handling joint compound back into the bowl so I can float it again in the warm sink while I do my first pass.

• After four passes (if I want them) I still get lather on my face like this using this protocol, and my brush can be loaded at the ready even for a (god forbid) fifth pass of warm lather!

• If I want to go that extra mile, I'll finish with a touch up by squeezing some lather out of the brush to finish it off.

This technique works well for me I think the glycerin soap really is superior for a slippery voluminous lather. I haven't gone back to a cream for a long while.

Nothing complex for me.

Throw a little water on the soap.
Soak brush while shaving.
Shake out brush.
Load brush with soap.
Scrub on face until adequate lather is a achived. Adding water as needed.

Shave, rinse, repeat, shave, rinse, repeat, rinse. Done.

How can I win if I don't have a brush to lather with!!!!!!

If using soap, first thing is to splash a bit of water on the soap to make loading the brush easier.

Run tap water till hot, holding brush under the the faucet to wet.
Fill up scuttle with hot water.

Load brush with soap or cream as appropriate.
Swirl a few times in the scuttle to build a bit of lather.
Shower while loaded brush is warming in the scuttle.
After showering, dump water out of scuttle and refill with fresh hot water.
Swirl a few times in the scuttle then face lather for a minute or 2.

Proceed with the actual shave.

(rough outline, that is modified as appropriate due to use of shave sticks, samples, time constraints, or most often sheer laziness)

1) Heat up water in electric kettle until it starts to boil
2) Pour water into lathering mug
3) Put brush in water for about a minute, then remove
4) Heat some more water
5) Dump old water and refill mug
6) Shake excess water out of brush
7) Dump water from mug, leaving only about a tsp behind
8) Load brush by lightly pressing bristles into cream and twisting back and forth 2-3 times
9) Swirl brush in mug until lather starts to build and add water as needed
10) Push brush down into bowl to release some lather
11) Swirl more vigorously
12) Lather meets the face

If using soap, I put some of the hot water on the puck to soften it.

I like to use both soaps and creams like many others here but I do it a little differently.I don't combine my soap and cream therefore I lather-up using different brushes.First is the soap;I load the brush using alternating circular patterns. Then I combine it with a little water in my mug.I build my lather for about one minute using a combination of swirls and pumps.I like this lather to be thinner and slicker for two WTG passes.Second is the cream. I load the brush by applying two pea sized dollops to the bristles.I build my lather for about 2 minutes using a combination of swirls and pumps.I like this lather to be thicker and cushier for two ATG passes.