Should I soak or bloom my soap?

https://youtu.be/MLqL-wsOHfU

Thanks for your insights Chris. That's pretty much my method with soft soaps and creams. I will give this a try with my hard soaps.

I do the same. Only bloom hard soaps. MDC is too filled new to bloom, but it lathers with ease without blooming anyway.

I've never found it necessary for me to soak the puck.
On my harder soaps I just leave my brush a bit more wet and add water as needed.

I almost exclusively use a boar so this may have some bearing on my method.

I bloom all of my soaps. I also live in a very dry area, with an average relative humidity of about 6%, so even soft soaps can benefit from a bloom. I don't have many creams, but the ones I do have are in tubes, so I can't bloom them.

I do use my bloom water as my lather foundation. I pour it off the soap into the scuttle before loading my brush, and I load with a pretty dry brush, even with my boars, so I don't oversaturate the container.

It works for me. Even if it's "all in my head", it's part of my process, so I accept it for what it is...

I bloom all hard soaps.

I can load hard soaps without blooming and get GREAT lather from it. Blooming the hard soaps just makes it a bit easier and faster to load the brush. That's all.
Not rocket science