Thread: Making my lather takes waaaaaayyyy too long

When make my lather it takes like 10-15 minutes until i can get a good sturdy but moist lather. Is this right? In case it helps, this is my process:

Let brush sit in hot water in my lather bowl while I take shower
When ready to make lather, empty bowl, shake brush out
Use an almond-sized amount of cream and start whipping/pumping

That's it! The whipping and pumping takes about 10-15 minutes to get a good lather. This seems too long.

Nope, that does not sound right.
When I use cream, it takes about a minute to have my scuttle filled to the brim with good lather.

You didn't mention adding any water? If you didn't add water, then that is what you need to do.
A brush, all shaken out, will not have enough water to make good lather.
Add a few drops at the time and see how that goes.
It is called wet shaving, and for a good reason
That is what this sounds like to me anyway!

Also, do you have "hard water"? If you do, that may be killing your lather. I have hard water in my area and I now use distilled water. That fixed my lather problems with even the most finicky of soaps and creams. Just my 2 cents, give it a try.

Glenn

Nope that doesn't sound right, but your prep does sound good. I only take a minute or two to get a great lather directly on my face with enough in the brush to last for several more passes. If you are beating on that lather for 15 minutes you have probably beat it completely past goodness.

You did not say what cream you are using. There have been some creams that were very poor performers, but for most creams and soaps regardless of water wherever I am I don't usually have any issues. I do not soak my brush but just a few minutes. I never have and cannot see an advantage to doing it now.

Try this - Take that dab of cream and pat it all over your face (after that hot towel or out of the shower), then shake out that brush just a couple of times and start whipping up a lathergoing all over your face. If it doesn't come up quickly and feels a little sticky then dip the tips of your brush in warm water and keep on going.

You should be picking up the cream by scrubbing all around your face and build lather as you go. There is no bowl to wash and you get to use all of the lather that you make.

I hope this helps a little. The water could be your problem, but my bet is not enough of your water first and maybe the cream.

Will N.

i have VERY hard water, and it still only takes a minute to whip up some bigelo or razorock.

i soak the brush while i shower. then i give it 2 light shakes. then i take 1/2" to 1" of bigelo and put it in my mug, then 'load' the brush in the mug for about 10 seconds, then take the brush to my face and lather for 3 minutes. by that time i normally have rich thick foam pouring down my arm.

Good of you to ask the question, and you are right do do so, the making of lather in a bowl should take no more than a few minutes so there is something going on there, could be you are not using enough water. Try addind a fwe drops at a time or leave some more on your brush as you start. See how that goes for you.
Sam

I 'soak' the bowl in hot water in the sink, use the brush to lather up in the shower with some 'cheap' (Palmolive) cream, put brush in bowl, finish shower, get out of shower, dry, lather up with Proraso, strop.

It only takes about a minute to make a lather (I use a small mortar and pestle (mortar) bowl). I lather up, then I then place bowl with brush into the hot water in the sink; with the water coming 2/3 up the side of the bowl, while I strop and then shave first pass (WTG) thereby keeping the lather warm for the second pass (XTG). I have noticed the difference in the warmness of the lather, esp now that it's cold (1 deg C at night). Only thing is I need to make sure I don't flick or splash more water in the bowl.

If it took me 15 minutes to make a lather I think I'd give up, that's about three times longer than SEX!!!!

All I can think of is hard water plus maybe new boar brush, plus maybe wrong soap water ratio.

I'm sort of in the same boat as the OP. I know we have fairly hard water here in Montréal, but A friend at work says he gets his lather up just fine, so to speak.

Like aramirez626, I fill my bowl with hot water and let my brush soak while I shower, then I pour out the water and shake out the brush slightly. Right now I'm using the tube Proraso. I put a dollop into the bowl and get to work. I have two brushes, an affordable Omega in... uh, boar, I guess, and a slightly smaller Rubberset whut I acquired when My poor old gramps passed, so I know nothing about it.

I *have* noticed that both brushes really suck up the soap as I go. I squeeze the bristles out agains the side of the bowl and continue, but the foam disappears up into the brush again.

Also, I still haven't worked out how much pressure I should be using, as in a heavy touch versus a light one. And I'm not sure what the OP mean by 'pumping.' Maybe something I should be looking into?

Here are some pics:


Here's my setup. The Omega brush is the wooden one. The other is the Rubberset. The bowl is just a clay bowl, which I'm now thinking might be a little too shallow. It's *quite* a shallow bowl.



The dollop size I typically use. The brush is wet from soaking.



Starting the lather. I typically wet the tips of the bristles as I go. Possibly not enough.



This is the most foam I've ever gotten. And that's after squeezing out the brush against the bowl.

that looks like it needs more water to me, i have some of the hot water in a separate bowl and i dip the brush (in maybe half a cm on the tips) and go pumping again