Creating extremely dense, fine-bubbled lather

[italianbarber]

Zach has said that he'll repost the video. See this comment.

That is great news, Michael.

Thanks for the update!

[jeeves]

am glad that Zach is doing this. Will be muy beneficial. (The espanol lingo was just for our linguistic "student" !!!!)

[leisureguy]

LOL. Tomorrow I start entering the vocabulary from the second-semester textbook into Anki.

[_Hanzo]

Great thread . I tried this method with my 3 yr. old Omega and Marvy rubber barbers cup and a new puck of VDH. Did a practice lather and then a shaving lather and I must say it seemed to work really well. The inexpensive VDH soap lather felt rich, dense and quite creamy, it felt transformed into a expensive soap. I think the mug worked really well here as its high walled , handled and has a ring at the bottom to firmly hold the soap which allowed me to really work the brush over the soap and even turn the mug upside down to load the brush that way. I did seem to use more soap but the payoff seems worth it so far. Will try this method more to really test it.

[leisureguy]

Nice photos! Yeah, I think this will go through soap a bit faster, but OTOH the purpose of the soap is to create a great lather, so... And, as you observe, an inexpensive soap can be used to make a high-end lather. I suspect now that this is why some European soaps are sold in 1 kg chunks, like Klar Kabinette.

[italianbarber]

Nice photos! Yeah, I think this will go through soap a bit faster, but OTOH the purpose of the soap is to create a great lather, so... And, as you observe, an inexpensive soap can be used to make a high-end lather. I suspect now that this is why some European soaps are sold in 1 kg chunks, like Klar Kabinette.

Michael,

That is exactly right.

All the Italian Barber soaps (VITOS, CELLA, P160, VALOBRA) come in 1kg/1000ml bricks for this very reason. By my estimate, I use 3-4ml of soap per shave. That means the bricks are good for about 350-400 shaves. Cost per shave is still really inexpensive.

Hanzo,

That looks like a wonderful lather!

[_Hanzo]

Continuing with trying this method of making soap lather and its working excellently. Making lather like this seems to produce a whole other kind of lather than what I was making before. I generated the lather above using a Frankensoap consisting of Kells samples, and parts of Col. Conk Amber and VDH Deluxe melted and it was nice to shave with, which may show its not the soap but the technique that matters.

Also, picking up on Joe's observations about barbering and shaving I have noticed that barber shop mugs might work for this better than standard cups or the cups used to package soaps . The barber mugs are made to hold the soap in place making the firm brush movements easy and the barber mugs are wide and deep offering the room necessary to generate lather. My barber shop mugs came from ebay except for the Green Rubber Marvy mug, which is available from any online barber supply for $10.

[o350125]

I think that I'm going to need to see the process on video. For some reason I'm not wrapping my head around it. It could be that I'm also pretty new to wet shaving and I'm still working on regular lathering.

Paul

[leisureguy]

I still don't have it down quite: some terrific, some okay. But I will say it's made me impatient for my next shave. (I figure it would be cheating just to make lather for practice. ) Tomorrow I'm going to try a puffy silvertip and see how that works.

[_Hanzo]

I think that I'm going to need to see the process on video. For some reason I'm not wrapping my head around it. It could be that I'm also pretty new to wet shaving and I'm still working on regular lathering.

Paul

I don't think you need video intruction. I would read Zachs article in full , its on Bruce's blog just use search term" Zach". What I have found is that using a Professional boar brush may not be essential but its qualities somehow make generating the lather easier. Its a simple technique. You are moving the brush heavy with water over the soap firmly and continuosly, as you generate a watery soap lather you are capturing it with your brush and moving the brush and lather together over the soap puck. This generates and mixes up the good rich , creamy , dense lather. Your lather will become noticeably different in your mug when you see it or feel it with your touch turn denser and creamier, then thats the sweet spot , thats the kind of lather you want.