OK; so here are my thoughts on the matter. Forgive the length of this post and the repetitive info it may contain, as I am ‘new’ here to TSD. Woolfat is a superfatted, triple milled soap; That means that there's excess fat in the soap, in the form of lanolin, which makes it great for your skin. Actually, the best part about woolfat is the continued use and the cumulative effects the lanolin has on your skin, making your shaves more and more effortless and less and less irritating, over time. By triple milled, we mean it has been dried and rolled into a fine paste three or more times and then made into a puck; the triple milled process removes almost all moisture, and the resulting soap will last a long time, and will have different lathering characteristics than say a glycerin or castile soap would. Lots of people have no problem with this soap but some do. People who have problems making lather with woolfat usually have one of two problems: a good looking lather in the bowl that disappears on the face a thin, wet lather that's not protective The advice that people have been historically given is: bloat the puck wet the top of the puck make superlather with the puck By bloat the puck, I mean that the advice has been given to fill the woolfat ceramic dish with water, and let it stand overnight, so that the puck absorbs the water like a sponge, making it easier for the soap to give up the lather. The problem with this advice is that oftentimes the 'fat' will separate and come to the top of the soap, making a great few lathers but also affecting the remainder of the puck adversely. By wet the top of the puck, we mean to put hot water on the top, leave it there while you shower, and then make a lather with the softened top layer of soap. This is good advice, as it solves the problem by making it easier to take the soap off of the puck, which IS the problem. By make superlather, we mean put some cream on the top and lather them both; this is always fun and makes a great lather and those are reasons enough to do this, but it's more of a work around than a fix, right? So the problem then is simple: there's just not enough soap in your brush. Now it has been asserted by some that a stiffer bristle is no better at taking soap off of a puck than a super soft hair is. This is not true. Imagine a puck of soap; imagine trying to take a layer of soap off that puck with a wire brush, the kind you would use to remove rust from steel; now imagine trying to take a layer of soap off with a feather duster. You see this in your mind, right? You see the disparity? While I'm not equating one brush with either implement, what I am saying is that these two brushes, silvertip and boar, both fall between the feather duster and the wire brush in their ability to remove a layer of soap from a puck of woolfat, the boar closer to the wire brush than the silvertip for the simple reason that stiffer is better when you're looking for an agitator. This can easily be demonstrated by weighing 2 new pucks of soap, lathering them, one with a boar and the other with a Kent BK4, and then re-weighing the pucks. How I digress! Back to the problem; you need more soap taken off the puck and loaded into your brush. We remove soap with hot water and the agitation of the brush on the surface of the puck. When we load up a badger, which has amazing abilities to retain water, we have to shake 90% of it out. More or less; 4-5 good shakes? How good is a good shake? Which grade of hair in what size knot with what length of loft? All these things are factors in how much water you need to remove from your brush; if you have more than 1, it's not the same, guaranteed. All brushes have a sweet spot, and it's really hard to reproduce this 2 days in a row, so, you never really learn the 'spot', you just start out dry and then add water slowly. Or, you have too wet a lather. The boar holds a lot less water and constitutes a much smaller variable, but, with a hard milled soap, a boar holds more or less the perfect amount of water necessary to create a fantastic lather, repeatable daily. If you load the brush by submerging in a glass of hot water, you'll always have the same amount; running it under the sink can vary this amount. Taking the brush out of the glass of hot water, hold it for 3 seconds till it stops dripping; this is the amount of water you need. In order to make use of all this water though, you have to use a dish or a bowl that will contain it and allow you to re-use it in order to take soap off of the puck, and then create a thin wet lather; you will work this thin, wet lather into the soap, creating a thicker, airier lather; neither of these lathers is appropriate for shaving. They are however perfectly good sources of moisture with which you will continue working into the soap, making a creamier, richer lather; after about 1 minute of this, your entire brush will be loaded with a dense cream; apply this to a very wet face, using that water as well, and lather up with a perfect lather all the time. Hope this helps / thanks for reading
Zach,thank you so much for this wonderful explanation.What have you wrote is basically what you show on the video of making lather with a boar brush.As I have said before that video gave me the idea of getting a boar brush and now I think I will never go back to badger(at least buying a new badger brush). What about face lathering with boar?Do you have any tricks for it?I have been face lathering with a shaving cream the last two days and it seems that requires a different approach that when I used a shaving stick.Both times I used the Semogue 1305 and 2000 and had some problems with excess of water(even when I did shake the brushes like 3 times)but I dont have that problem when I use shaving sticks.Am I missing something?Shake it even more when I use creams?
Teiste, here is a wonderful link by Tim that does a great job explaining something that he put a lot of work into that is most definitely worth sharing! Tim has great skills of discernation (if that's not a word is should be!) that are an asset to the community.
Thanks Zach,is a great thread with good info.Ill keep trying my boar with creams but I love shavesticks too much.
I've been alternating between creams and sticks lately, both face lathered only. I soak the brush during my shower, re wet my face, then dab with the cream (4 spots - each cheek, chin, and neck), or I'll apply the stick. I pull the brush out of the mug it's soaking in and let it dribble out, like in Zach's video. Then I'll...it's kind of hard to explain...I'll dip the brush vertically once in the air to get a little extra water out. Not quite a shake, where you flick the bristles, but keep the bristles hanging down and just make a quick down-then-up motion to get that little extra "dollop" of water out. I hope that makes some sense..... Then I start working the cream or stick into a lather on my face. Initially it is still very, very wet and running down my cheek to my chin, but I'll just sort of "scoop" up the sudsy water with the bristles and work it back in. I quickly get all of my face started, then I'll go back and slowly work it all back into a nice lather. I usually don't need to add any extra water at this point, but depending on what soap or cream I'm using, or maybe how humid it is that day, or what phase the moon is in and if it's crossing Venus's path or not, I may need to dip the tips into the mug. But usually not for that initial lather. After I shave my first pass, I'll dip the tip of the brush in the mug to add a little extra water before applying my 2nd pass, and same for the 3rd pass. I find that I can consistently get a great lather using this method every time. In fact, I can't recall the last time I've had a bad lather.... Sorry for the thread jack, but I'll let you blame it on Teiste... :happy102 Of course, knowing what I know now about lathering with my boars, and reading Zach's post above, makes me want to try MWF again...
Great write up Zach. I personally enjoy MWF. I can bowl lather it fine but prefer face lathering with the boar. I cut my puck in half(omegapd has it now) but still have months left of my half. I wish the scent was better but I cant bitch. I have heard from loyal user that a puck can last 9-10 months also which makes the soap very affordable and a great buy. Good stuff!
I did try the Kent/MWF today.Got a serious razor burn as well as more than 15 nicks and cuts.My face is on fire now.I did use it as a shaving stick...didnt work at all.Really thin lather and not very protective.I wonder what went wrong.I dont know if was the hardness of the water that I used today or maybe I was shaving really fast with a 1912 GEM,but the thin lather didnt help at all.I will try when my face heals,maybe by the end of next week or I will make super lather with it.The funny thing is I did try this soap when I was living in UK and I dont remember being as bad as It was today.At that time I was using shaving sticks(Boots ones)and couldnt make a lot of lather from the wooden bolw but I can say that I made more lather than today....I wont be able to shave tomorrow:mad::mad::mad:
Well,Corey made a shave stick from his puck and it seems that for him works.For me didnt,so yes,I will try as Zach posted or showed on his video.Lets see if in that way I could enjoy the Kent MWF soap.By the way,its scent is great,I really like it and for summer is like the IM oneERFECT!
I did shave with the Kent/MWF again.I put the puck on a bowl and I follow Zachs and Mantic tricks about how to making lather and....WOW!!!Now I can say that I had a great shave with it.Its maybe not the best lather(it wasnt too thin but either too thick like Tabac or IM) but its skin care its simply superb.Now I understand how many ppl is just faithful to MWF.The lanolin factor mixed with tallow creates a good protective lather.I have to play a little bit more with it but today Im really impressed.
I'm not sure if you've tried it yet, but I've found that MWF works extremely well when you load the brush up a little bit more than with typical soaps. That extra bit goes a long way to get a rich lather.
Yes Corey,My 2000 Semogue was a little bit more load of water than usual.I also tried the upside down lathering technique and worked well too.Thanks for the info!
How does this brush compare with the Omega 31064? I liked the Omega but feel I still prefer a scrubbier brush for soaps, which I use most of the time.
Never tried an Omega.The only that I can tell you about this brush is that has really soft tips,good firm backbone and the handle is just perfect.I also have the 1305 and the same.Both works wonderfully with hard soaps.
Lanolin is an interesting substance. It's not an oil, but a wax, which means that it does not saponify when making soap. Waxes will inhibit lathering somewhat, so the lanolin which is so important to their recipe reduces the lathering. I suspect that the reason that people have such different experiences with MWF is unrelated to that, however. I think that MWF is a soap that is more sensitive to hard water than many others. That combined with the lather reduction of the lanolin makes the lathering performance very poor for people cursed with hard water. (I do have a bit more trouble with MWF compared to the other soaps that I have, and I have typical hard Texas water.)
Today I shaved with it on an area with has really hard water and when I didnt get a lot of thick lather I did create a good amount of lather from it,but Im using it as a shavestick and the performance of the soap have been increased significantly for good.I bet that trying to make good,thick lather on a bowl with hard water must be a real problem with this soap. The skin properties of this soap are really good,but again,I get good results from non tallow or lanolin on it soaps.
In a nutshell, the 31064 is not as big a knot and a lot softer; the 2000 has a thicker gauge of bristle, is much scrubbier on the face, and will likely never get as soft as the 31064. If you like the feeling of a good scrub, or if you think the 31064 has gotten too soft over time, you'll love the 2000. Both are fantastic brushes, and deserve a spot in any rotation. When you shave with the 31064 after a week of Semogue use it feels like a BK4; after you shave with the 31064 for a week the 2000 feels like a Burma Shave brush; neither is true of course but the disparity is there, and a lot of fun when you recognize it. What's great is that you can have a 1305, 2000, AND a 31064 for less money than one BK4, with enough left over for a #48 (and a beer).
