Brush size vs soap load epiphany

Haven’t worn a beard in a long time and my beard-loving daughter-in-law thought I ought to give it a go.  Here’s the rub; I have discovered that I don’t need so much soap as before (Surprise).  A two pass neck cleanup doesn’t take nearly as much lather as a three pass full shave.  “No problem” I thought, “just load shorter and make less lather”.  Problem is all my favorite brushes and soaps are no longer predictable.  I’m not getting the same quality lather or shave as I was previously.  The brush doesn’t act or feel right and the soap seems to get lost in the brush.  The brushes seem to want to have a full load to work with Regardless of whether I need that much lather not.  My solution has been to dig out a few small brushes, 20mm to 24mm and I’m using those.  Things are much better now.  Has anyone else ran across this?  What was your solution?

Haven’t worn a beard in a long time and my beard-loving daughter-in-law thought I ought to give it a go.  Here’s the rub; I have discovered that I don’t need so much soap as before (Surprise).  A two pass neck cleanup doesn’t take nearly as much lather as a three pass full shave.  “No problem” I thought, “just load shorter and make less lather”.  Problem is all my favorite brushes and soaps  are no longer predictable.  I’m not getting the same quality lather or shave as I was previously.  The brush doesn’t act or feel right and the soap seems to get lost in the brush.  The brushes seem to want to have a full load to work with Regardless of whether I need that much lather not.  My solution has been to dig out a few small brushes, 20mm to 24mm and I’m using those.  Things are much better now.  Has anyone else ran across this?  What was your solution?

I haven't shaved my entire face in probably 6-7 years now. I just use as much soap as I need, it's cheap enough and I have plenty! I also only do 1 pass, too!

Haven’t worn a beard in a long time and my beard-loving daughter-in-law thought I ought to give it a go.  Here’s the rub; I have discovered that I don’t need so much soap as before (Surprise).  A two pass neck cleanup doesn’t take nearly as much lather as a three pass full shave.  “No problem” I thought, “just load shorter and make less lather”.  Problem is all my favorite brushes and soaps  are no longer predictable.  I’m not getting the same quality lather or shave as I was previously.  The brush doesn’t act or feel right and the soap seems to get lost in the brush.  The brushes seem to want to have a full load to work with Regardless of whether I need that much lather not.  My solution has been to dig out a few small brushes, 20mm to 24mm and I’m using those.  Things are much better now.  Has anyone else ran across this?  What was your solution?

I haven't shaved my entire face in probably 6-7 years now.  I just use as much soap as I need, it's cheap enough and I have plenty!  I also only do 1 pass, too!

Oh boy don’t I know it! I’m not concerned about soap use because I don’t have enough years on this planet to use up what I have.  Just surprised that a half-load didn’t make half of the predictable lather. And thanks for your work Andrew.

Parsimonious loading of soap has been the root cause of nearly all the bad shaving experiences to date. Once embracing that overloading was vastly superiour to precisely loading from a risk:reward perspective, nearly all soap related shave issues ceased. Oddly enough this seems associated with higher quality brushes.

Used a cute little Ever Ready restored brush that I stuffed a 20 mm Silvertip into years ago.  Love the look of the brush but was constantly going back to the puck during a regular 3 pass.  For a 2 pass neck clean-up it works great.  No “parsimonious” loading (and yep, that’s a brand new word for me) and the lather turned out great.  Thanks for the education DanLaw.

Love that jar

It's really quite simple. Load it like you hate it and, to quote a shaving colleague of mine: "It owes you money and 2 months behind in payment". This has been my philosophy for 6+ years and it has never disappointed.

It's really quite simple. Load it like you hate it and, to quote a shaving colleague of mine: "It owes you money and 2 months behind in payment". This has been my philosophy for 6+ years and it has never disappointed.

Yep.  I repented.