Just did my first face lather (about 3 times now) But I find it difficult to get the right balance, water/cream. Plus I use a lot more cream, than the regular almond drop in the bowl (3 times more even!), and it's not as warm. I bet I could get the same result from using more cream in the bowl... Soaps are a bowl thing for me...
Another face latherer here, I like that it saves me the extra cleanup involved and seems to work as good or better than using the bowl with most of my brushes.
I don't use a bowl at all. I lather on my face or occassionally, in the palm of my hand. My face is the easiest and quickest way for me. I use my hand only when face lathering doesn't do the trick and I need a little something extra.
Before I switched to straights, I went cream to brush to face... but I find I have more, better lather (no matter which cream I use) if I use a bowl. And I've got a kind of redneck scuttle going, where I fill my Bert's Bees mug with hot water, and put a smaller bowl into that... (both of which are preheated with hot water while I shower). This provides toasty warm lather through however many passes I want to do. cass
I generally lather on my face. I find I use more soap and more time to build a decent lather in a cup, and I lose a great deal of heat to the cup as well. Granted, I have a really, really nice Bauhaus lather bowl (technically, it was intended as a very avante-garde small soup bowl, but it works and looks much better in my bathroom than my kitchen), so I enjoy lathering in a bowl . . . I also miss the "scrubbing" of the lather into my face if I lather in a bowl, though the thickness and softness of the lather produced almost makes up for that.
I use a rice bowl I got at Target for $2.99. I fill it with water put it in the microwave for 2 minutes while I shower, when I get out I soak my brush in it and then dump the water and make some nice hot lather. The bowl keeps the lather warm while shave 2 passes and touch up.
When I use just soap I face lather. When I use just shaving cream, I start with some palm lathering and move to the face. But when I use soap AND add some shaving cream I usually reach for my Target Latte Bowl...
