I use soap more often than creams. In my experience if your lather dries too fast you aren't using enough water. Or simply didn't make lather you made suds instead. One way good way to judge is if your blade is collecting thick creme is that is like hand lotion in consistency. If you find anything like that on your blade when you are done you are not incorporating enough water. That is in of itself not bad but it is not as slick as it could be. You will get more irritation than with proper lather. It does take a bit of time to learn to make great lather every time.
Most of the videos I see online don't show proper lather which I think leads to a lot of the confusion newbies have about it. Your lather should be very light and make good peaks if you want it to.
You can make great lather with soaps or cremes. Some don't do as well as others if you have very hard water. An easy solution is to use distilled water to make your lather. It only takes a couple of ounces so a gallon will last a long time. You really only need enough to soak your brush and maybe just enough to tip the bristles in if you need to add more.
I don't have anything against cremes. I just started out with soap and am more comfortable with it. IMO Taylor's soaps are about the cheapest good milled soap you can buy. Vintage Blades LLC has some fantastic soaps that aren't really expensive and (for me) beat out just about everything unless you spend many times more on Truefitt and Hill, Castle Forbes, and a few other super expensive ones. Triple milled soaps look expensive when you price them but in reality they last so long they don't cost anymore to use than cheap glycerin based soaps.
Some soaps like Millers Wool Fat yield excellent results if you like the smell. Some people love it, other hate the smell.
If I were looking for a good soap to start out with I would try one of the house ones from Vintage Blades but there are many many good soaps out there.
Most of the videos I see online don't show proper lather which I think leads to a lot of the confusion newbies have about it. Your lather should be very light and make good peaks if you want it to.
You can make great lather with soaps or cremes. Some don't do as well as others if you have very hard water. An easy solution is to use distilled water to make your lather. It only takes a couple of ounces so a gallon will last a long time. You really only need enough to soak your brush and maybe just enough to tip the bristles in if you need to add more.
I don't have anything against cremes. I just started out with soap and am more comfortable with it. IMO Taylor's soaps are about the cheapest good milled soap you can buy. Vintage Blades LLC has some fantastic soaps that aren't really expensive and (for me) beat out just about everything unless you spend many times more on Truefitt and Hill, Castle Forbes, and a few other super expensive ones. Triple milled soaps look expensive when you price them but in reality they last so long they don't cost anymore to use than cheap glycerin based soaps.
Some soaps like Millers Wool Fat yield excellent results if you like the smell. Some people love it, other hate the smell.
If I were looking for a good soap to start out with I would try one of the house ones from Vintage Blades but there are many many good soaps out there.
