Building Lather Directly to the Face?

[mantic]

Gents--

I tried some Kingsley hard shaving soap over the weekend. As the cake was shaped for a scuttle, I used it in mine (a gift from my father-in-law, who found it in a junk shop a couple months ago!). The up-side was that the cake fit perfectly; I filled the base with steaming-hot water, soaked my brush, and went at it. The down-side was I had to build the lather on my face, which I'm not used to. I would lightly sweep the brush over the soap then scrub it onto my face. At first the lather was much too thin, really just a soap-like lather, so I kept sweeping my brush on the soap and re-applying it. It finally did get that meringue-like texture I look for, but that turned out to be "too much"--the lather had so much slip the blade was sliding right over my stubble. In the end, after working at it for a while, I got an "OK" shave. Its clear I'm going to need some practice building lather directly to my face instead of in a mug, or not use the scuttle and go ahead and build the way I'm used to....

...so, just for "grins and giggles" this morning, I decided to try to build a lather directly on my face using one of my good creams. I soaked my brush well, turned it bristle-side-up, and squirted some Truefitt & Hill 1805 to it. Then started directly to my face. For the first second or two the brush dripped extra water from my face into the sink, but I kept on working it and, much to my suprise, a quite good lather started building straightaway. I kept up a "scrubbing" motion for a bit to get it worked in, added just a bit more water to the brush, then finished by "painting" in the usual fashion. The shave was typical for an upper-end cream--that is, excellent.

Clearly this is something I need to experiment with. Lathering directly to the face seems to be less messy than using a mug or palm, but I imagine its going to work better with some creams and soaps than others (the ones that "need a good beating," like Coates, may not work well...then again, perhaps the natural roughness of the face might improve it?).

Comments? Suggestions?

--Mark

[clownjuggles]

Mark.

I would have to say that I am of the frame of mind that soaps are for mugs and will be best used to that end. I think that you can easily lather almost any cream on the face. Castle forbes is the easieset to use cream that i own. Yet i hear people have trouble with it. It boggles my mind. I do know that it is possible that they may be using too much creme. Coates and Castle forbes hold more water than most cremes including taylors in my opinion. That might have something to do with it. I personally enjoy building the lather on my face. I think that the cremes like coates and CF benefit more from a hotter water in it than some of the others. Hotter is better. That is my philosophy.