Can Great Lather be Generated from Any Reasonable Quality Shaving Soap or Cream?

[JCinPA]

That’s why I asked Phil to retitle my threads. I was never trying to lay out a foolproof “method”, but rather give folks having problems with a product to sort them out, THEN find the method they like to use.

I don’t disagree with you on hard soaps. See here for explanation.

My "Foolproof Method" threads have been retitled ...

Phil, friend and uber-moderator @luvmysuper was kind enough to retitle my Foolproof threads from Foolproof Lather Method (TM) for any soap to Foolproof Lather Discovery Process (TM) for any soap There are a couple of reasons I wanted to do this, as I am still getting messages about those...

www.badgerandblade.com

I’m actually agnostic on how people lather their soaps. But if they are having issues, my process is a foolproof method to sort them out.

 

[Roy]

Can I add the opposite idea, that you can make bad lather from any soap?
Was in a hurry and added too much water to SV after loading brush and bowl lathered. Awful! Would hav3 have put me off the wonderful sv if it was my first time.

 

[JCinPA]

@Roy Oh yes, I've made my share of bad lather.

That's exactly why I do this process with every new (to me) soap I try. I don't want to miss a gem of a soap because I don't understand it enough to lather it properly. Everyone here has made plenty of bad lather, I'm sure. That's how you get to learn to make good lather.

But the differences in shave lather products is so remarkably wide I think everyone should use this process (not method!) with every new lather product before they try to judge it. It's not really about the lather method one uses, it's about understanding the soap and its properties.

 

[Keyvan]

Thanks, Kayvan. Can’t wait to try that.

You are welcomed. I hope it works for you. Once you reach the glue stage, the hard part is over.

 

[phillylion]

You are welcomed. I hope it works for you. Once you reach the glue stage, the hard part is over.

Thanks Kayvan-worked like a charm! Lather thick and slick! Great shave.

 

[cymric]

In my experience (of about 80 products) only a few don't really lather well. What business the producer selling such products has is beyond me. Those products ended up in the trash.

The rest lathers, if need be with the ****tiest, stinkiest, el cheapo boar brush I bought for €2 at my local drug store. Even tallow-based MWF could be lathered perfectly well with that little brush. It just takes a bit longer, that's all.

Now whether the lather is something I can shave with is another matter. Something that feels rich and creamy and supple and slick does not automatically agree with my skin, alas.

 

[Lane101]

In my experience (of about 80 products) only a few don't really lather well. What business the producer selling such products has is beyond me. Those products ended up in the trash.

The rest lathers, if need be with the ****tiest, stinkiest, el cheapo boar brush I bought for €2 at my local drug store. Even tallow-based MWF could be lathered perfectly well with that little brush. It just takes a bit longer, that's all.

Now whether the lather is something I can shave with is another matter. Something that feels rich and creamy and supple and slick does not automatically agree with my skin, alas.

I have a Razorock Blondie (rebranded Zenith 80N) boar brush and have found that it loads faster than my two synthetics. I use it for my hardest shaving pucks for exactly that reason. It's excellent for my Williams pucks. All my brushes have 26mm knots. Wound up going back to my synthetics for my tallow MWF as the boar pulled too much product for each shave.

Curious, for the few soaps that did not lather well were they missing important ingredients? For example saponification only with sodium hydroxide, like bath soap, with no potassium hydroxide?

 

[Lane101]

Can I add the opposite idea, that you can make bad lather from any soap?
Was in a hurry and added too much water to SV after loading brush and bowl lathered. Awful! Would hav3 have put me off the wonderful sv if it was my first time.

Absolutely with the wrong technique. Often the reason for the variations in technique for different types of soap/cream in my original post were initial shaves with sub-optimal lather. My experience with soft Italian soaps is a great example of this where loading straight from the container with my synthetic brushes did not pull enough product resulting in weak lather. Hence the change to scooping enough product into a small bowl prior to building lather.

 

[Lane101]

Yes, you can take it to your face, but do it in the mug first after you've soaked it and the brush for a while.

I can safely say with a fair degree of certainty I've gone through more pucks of the stuff in my 25 years of daily use than anyone else on the forum. And I'm sure other methods work well, too, I don't have the only one. But soaking the puck and brush for a bit while you do other things, like shower, is key to its success, IMO. But that's what I did, I'm sure other ways will work, also.

It's not bad stuff at all, especially the older versions (which I was using back in the day) is good tier 2 lather. But it's objectively, I think, not the equal of something like Haslinger. Good stuff, to be sure, but not magical in any way. I am amused so many are lamenting its demise with so many better products available to us today.

Nostalgia, I guess.

P.S. and because it was a good lather, at the price, it was an amazing value, I'm not criticizing it in any way. I'm just amused by the whole thing.

Just reread our posts on Williams here and it reactivated my Williams nostalgia. Right now the only Williams in my rotation is part of one of my infamous custom VanDerWilliams blends in an apothecary mug. The minute I 3017 one of the soaps in my apothecary mugs it will be replaced by a straight puck of Williams from my inventory. Time to give my boar some extra exercise.

P.S. What size brushes do you typically use? Wondering if my preference for larger 26mm knots has helped me better load my really hard soaps better.

 

[Juanmosey]

Any soap that contains sufficient stearic acid and potassium hydroxide can provide a nice stable shaving lather.

There's a soap in India which has 5 ingredients and produces a very rich, creamy lather because it's predominantly made up of stearic acid, palmitic acid (plus some coconut acid) and 100% potassium hydroxide (no sodium hydroxide at all!).

I just lathered up some soft TFS almond and it was the easiest and contains the exact 5 ingredients you mention. I used the little white 22mm Yaqi which I call "Lil Joe".

 

[nav]

I just lathered up some soft TFS almond and it was the easiest and contains the exact 5 ingredients you mention. I used the little white 22mm Yaqi which I call "Lil Joe".
View attachment 1919923

That's essentially what shaving soap is.
Everything in addition can provide skin benefits or are just for label appeal/marketing.

 

[cymric]

I have a Razorock Blondie (rebranded Zenith 80N) boar brush and have found that it loads faster than my two synthetics. I use it for my hardest shaving pucks for exactly that reason. It's excellent for my Williams pucks. All my brushes have 26mm knots. Wound up going back to my synthetics for my tallow MWF as the boar pulled too much product for each shave.

Curious, for the few soaps that did not lather well were they missing important ingredients? For example saponification only with sodium hydroxide, like bath soap, with no potassium hydroxide?

The difference between 15, 20, 25, 30 seconds of gently loading is one I do not find at all interesting; neither, therefore, the idea that you 'need' a certain brush for a certain product. My skin is the only constant in this story, and there's no way I'm going to evoke an attack of urticaria by careless use of prickly boar bristles (my skin is a bit on the sensitive side, alas).

MWF is a bit of a strange customer because it cheats in its formulation. There's many water sequestering agents in there, so if you load your usual time, you'll pick up a lot of those agents. These in turn require a lot of water to do their thing properly, leaving you with far too much lather in the process. The conclusion: I've overloaded! If you simply cut back loading time by a third to a half, you'll find the boar brush doing just fine with this soap.

The above is also the reason why MWF and I didn't get along in the end: Its lather is a bit fake.

The products which did not lather likely used the wrong oils. One product was hard, the other soft, so that rules out any sodium and potassium shenangigans. Besides that, MWF lathered just fine. And that stuff will give your brush a cardiac arrest thanks to all the sodium.

 

[cymric]

Absolutely with the wrong technique. Often the reason for the variations in technique for different types of soap/cream in my original post were initial shaves with sub-optimal lather. My experience with soft Italian soaps is a great example of this where loading straight from the container with my synthetic brushes did not pull enough product resulting in weak lather. Hence the change to scooping enough product into a small bowl prior to building lather.

Hm. Never had any issue with not picking up sufficient product with P.160 (the old one, in the striped box, tipo morbido and tipo duro), Cella, Valobra, and any other soft Italian soap with a synthetic brush. The Acca Kappa in the aluminum tin which I got for my birthday a few months ago works like a charm with my Mühle synthetic. Not as clay-y as, say, Cella, but nowhere near a hard puck.

I do not wish to sound patronising, but given that we both can't be right, and I know I'm getting more than enough thick lather from these products... you may want to check your loading technique.

 

[Lane101]

Hm. Never had any issue with not picking up sufficient product with P.160 (the old one, in the striped box, tipo morbido and tipo duro), Cella, Valobra, and any other soft Italian soap with a synthetic brush. The Acca Kappa in the aluminum tin which I got for my birthday a few months ago works like a charm with my Mühle synthetic. Not as clay-y as, say, Cella, but nowhere near a hard puck.

I do not wish to sound patronising, but given that we both can't be right, and I know I'm getting more than enough thick lather from these products... you may want to check your loading technique.

The new P.160 that I have is a different shaving soap. It is the exact same base as the Razorock Classic Italian with a trace amount of tallow acid added. In the ingredients list the tallow comes after the saponification agents so very little is used. It's a good soap but, as I reported, doesn't appear work any differently than the RR Classic Italian. A comparison of the ingredients is pasted below. Note that with water as the first ingredient the original could be softer.

Note there could also be a difference in our loading techniques. My technique doesn't work in the shallow original soft Italian soap containers where quickly there is lather spilling out all over the place. It works better in a deeper bowl where initial lather isn't lost while I finish loading. It's also possible, since I like slicker and wetter lather, that another difference is that I start out with a wetter shaving brush compared to your technique.

Comparison of original and new P.160 Ingredients (per Italian Barber web site):

New P.160 Ingredients:
Stearic Acid, Water(Eau), Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Potassium, Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Tallow Acid, Hydrogenated Lanolin, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea)Butter,Fragrance(Parfum), Argania Spinosa (Argan)Oil, Aloe Barbadensis Extract(Aloe).

Original P.160 Ingredients (striped box):
Aqua, Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Tallow, Cocos Nucifera, Potassium Hydroxide, Parfum, Potassium Carbonate, Benzyl Alcohol, Tetrasodium EDTA

 

[Honedright]

I’ve made good, even great, lather from some notoriously “bad” shaving soaps such as Williams (my favorite RIP), and Marvy Deluxe. Ivory bar soap also makes a great shaving lather once you figure it out. Any soap that lists Steric acid as the first ingredient (Proraso? and look at the ingredients list on a can of Barbasol shave cream) is easy.

 

[blethenstrom]

The new P.160 that I have is a different shaving soap. It is the exact same base as the Razorock Classic Italian with a trace amount of tallow acid added. In the ingredients list the tallow comes after the saponification agents so very little is used. It's a good soap but, as I reported, doesn't appear work any differently than the RR Classic Italian. A comparison of the ingredients is pasted below. Note that with water as the first ingredient the original could be softer.

Note there could also be a difference in our loading techniques. My technique doesn't work in the shallow original soft Italian soap containers where quickly there is lather spilling out all over the place. It works better in a deeper bowl where initial lather isn't lost while I finish loading. It's also possible, since I like slicker and wetter lather, that another difference is that I start out with a wetter shaving brush compared to your technique.

Comparison of original and new P.160 Ingredients (per Italian Barber web site):

New P.160 Ingredients:
Stearic Acid, Water(Eau), Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Potassium, Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Tallow Acid, Hydrogenated Lanolin, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea)Butter,Fragrance(Parfum), Argania Spinosa (Argan)Oil, Aloe Barbadensis Extract(Aloe).

Original P.160 Ingredients (striped box):
Aqua, Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Tallow, Cocos Nucifera, Potassium Hydroxide, Parfum, Potassium Carbonate, Benzyl Alcohol, Tetrasodium EDTA

Is the older P.160 softer? If so, it could be because the new formulation is a dual lye(NaOH and KOH) one and the old one is only a single KOH lye soap. The higher ratio of NaOH used in a shave soap the harder it will be generally speaking. Likewise the higher ratio of KOH used makes the soap softer. This directly effect the ease/difficulty to load the brush.

I made a single NaOH lye shave soap once and while it will lather just fine it was a job and a half to get the product on my brush. Worked well to rub the puck on my face and pull it off that way, but loading the brush directly was difficult.

Side note: The water evaporates during the curing period of the soap so in the end there will not be much left in the final soap. I agree with you that the Tallow in the New P.160 formulation will be at quite a low percentage. Probably so that they can claim that it is a tallow soap for marketing reasons.

 

[GR5233]

I made a single NaOH lye shave soap once and while it will lather just fine it was a job and a half to get the product on my brush. Worked well to rub the puck on my face and pull it off that way, but loading the brush directly was difficult.

If I were to do that I’d think about getting either the push up tubes like the ones used by Tabac or the old Old Spice deodorant or the round twist up ones

 

[blethenstrom]

If I were to do that I’d think about getting either the push up tubes like the ones used by Tabac or the old Old Spice deodorant or the round twist up ones

Yeah I made a few of those as well and they work well in the twist up deodorant ones, but in actuality I prefer a bit softer shave soap so I have options. For travel it would work really well.

 

[GR5233]

Yeah I made a few of those as well and they work well in the twist up deodorant ones, but in actuality I prefer a bit softer shave soap so I have options. For travel it would work really well.

Soft soaps work well in the twist up variety though can be a bit stubborn if it hasn’t been used in awhile after having been used. I currently have some Vito’s red in some twist up tubes. Love how well it works

 

[blethenstrom]

Soft soaps work well in the twist up variety though can be a bit stubborn if it hasn’t been used in awhile after having been used. I currently have some Vito’s red in some twist up tubes. Love how well it works

Oh I am not talking Vito soft in a deodorant twist container. Think Arko. That is more like it.