Yeah, it works great with all my brushes, badger, boar and horse. I start with a wet brush and load 45 seconds or so, then face lather.
I load the brush quite vigorously and throughly—easily 3x times the loading time spent with other pucks. I have used both my boars and badgers with similar results; but mainly I use boars with difficult soaps. Believe me, I do add a goodly amount of water in the process; whipped up to several minutes. This isn't my first 'soap lathering' rodeo—but I will continue to plow on until either I get the desired results or my arm falls off from constant lather whipping....
Kevin, you probably have more tips than you need but............ I'll try and give you some too. Get your puck into a soup or cereal bowl, fill up the bowl with hot water and throw your brush in it also. Let it soak while you prep your face (just a minute or two). Pour the water out of the bowl, give your brush a light flick (or don't, just let it drain out without the flick) and start mixing. You should start out getting a wet soupy mess, just keep mixing on the soap you should hit a good useable lather. If it continues to be a wet soupy mess after a few minutes pour the wet mess off the soap but do nothing with the brush, keep mixing and you should hit a good lather before to long. Good luck.
BTW: I added some water to a tin of Stirling 'Black Ice', capped it and gave it a good shake. I let the tin rest while I shower. By the time I was ready to make some lather, the puck had softened considerably. I found it much easier to generate good, quality lather from the puck in this manner. I discovered, however, this particular soap lather's tendency to whither away and dry up rather quickly compared to most soaps. About the time I've about finished one side of my face, the lather on the opposite side has faded—so time to reapply more lather to finish the job. This is more of a slight annoyance than anything else since I do enjoy the lather application process.
Follow-up on my Stirling Struggles: Success! Using Oscar's suggestion of the 'pre-shave puck soak' (say that fast 3x!) made a world of difference in the puck yielding lather. I keep one puck at the base of my scuttle, add sufficient warm water to saturate (and maybe a drop or 4 of menthol M-bomb), and post-shower when it's time to lather, the Stirling puck produce a generous amount of thick n' slick lather. Nice stuff and terrific fragrance... Sure, there seems to be a little more prep time in using this soap, but in the end, the results speak for themselves and are worth the effort.
I honestly soak all my soaps and creams with warm water. When I am ready to shave I take the access water and apply it to my face, doing this you will notice how slick the soap is and you can even start to build a bit.
Definitely the Stirling soaps are thirstier than most other artisan soaps I've used, but in the end the lathers becomes thick and rich.
This is what I get from Stirling when I put a little hot water on the puck and soak my brush. I shake and squeeze out most of the excess water, and proceed to swirl. I usually generate the beginnings of a pretty gooey lather while loading. I usually load until the puck begins to feel a bit tacky on the brush. Once I'm done loading, I scoop up all of the goodness and proceed to my bowl or face as necessary. In most cases, I do not need to add any more water to the mixture. If you use enough water at the beginning, you should be good to go. I have pretty hard water as well. This has proven to be a pretty failsafe way to lather all my soaps. Hope this helps!
The Glacial is absolutely bone-chillingly cold. Only one other soap matches it in terms of menthol power - the Shaving Yeti's Yeti Snot. Nothing else mentholated in a soap or a cream I have even comes close.
Had a cold this week and was completely congested. After a couple shaves being bummed out that I couldn't smell anything, I got the idea to get out the Glacial. Cleared my sinuses right out. Good stuff.
I used the Glacial last week and the menthol fumes hit me and when that happened my eyes started tearing, and I got a sneezing fit!
Unwrapped my puck of Texas on Fire, a new scent from Stirling, and shaved with it today. I really like this scent. Smoke. Hardwood smoke. That's what hits you first, that's what oozes out even before the shrink wrap is off. But it's not one-note: as you start lathering, leather comes on strong and, in the background, fresh cut wood. Smells like sitting around a campfire in the woods with Ernest Hemingway, the night before a morning fishing for trout. Not all of Rod's scents have worked for me, but the ones that do are just fantastic, and this is another one of those. Performance-wise, it is as great as usual.
I pulled out my Stirling Bay Rum today. I had not used it in a while and forgot how "dead on" the scent is. As usual, I got a good thick, slick lather and a great shave. Rod's Bay Rum is a perfect match for Krampert's Bay Rum!
Put a puck of Stirling Barbershop in my mug on March 24. I have used it almost exclusively since then and I must say that it is really becoming boring to have to deal with a thick, slick, easy to build lather every morning! I am face lathering with it and it always delivers!
