I am having a little trouble with my soaps especially my col conks glycerin soaps. MY favorite so far is the proraso jar but i like the smell of my conks and try to use in my rotation. my trouble is building a lather that lasts. the proraso seems to work the best but usually i have to build new lather by the third pass. My conks lather seems to fall apart rather fast I have tried adjusting the ratio of the soap and water but still have trouble either being to dry or weak and disintigrates. I live in scottsdale az ANd I believe that the water is hard I have tried using distilled water and adding baking soda to my regular water. Is this about technique or the soap or the water????
Jason, There is a "sticky" thread in the soaps sub-forum where TraderJoe shows how to build lather with a glycerin soap: http://www.theshaveden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56 Here is a video demonstraing lathering a soap with a boar brush, and his methods are easily translated to a badger brush too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIsj58fqVjY Make sure you've loaded enough soap into the brush (it'll start sounding sticky on the puck). Proraso is a softer soap in the jar, so it may be that you're not working long enough on the Conk puck to atttain the same amount and quality of lather. HTH -- good luck.
I love the Zachs video that Chris just posted it.It shows you how to create a good lather from any soap and also how good its a boar brush. This is another link that could help you with the stickys and the video: http://wet-shavers.com/how-to-lather-shaving-soap/
thanks guys I think I see the fault with my technique yea the proraso is definitly a softer soap and with the conk I didn't load enough soap on the brush. It is cool to see that just a little modification can yield huge results! that is one thing I really enjoy about shaving that I never cared about berfore with my mach three. Now i am in love with my merkeur hd and have started placing bids for vintage gilletes man, I would like to get a 1940 superspeed! oh no RAD just bit me!! Good thing I don't have alot of money or I would be in huge trouble.:sick007
Hello Jason, I don't know why, but I have problems to built a rich lather with some soaps ,like the Muehle Sanddorn, in my jars. It works out pretty good building the lather in my hand then. But, please don't ask me why... :ashamed001 Viele Grüße from Michael!
I prefer to face lather, loading soap on my face and brush before mixing. It's sort of a pseudo-shave stick routine. Zach gets good results using lots of water in the brush and lathering on the puck. Whatever the mixing method, the key element is getting plenty of soap into the mix.
