How to lather

Bowl lathering

Lathering a Stirling soap in a bowl is easy. Watch Rod from Stirling Soap Co. make a glossy, thick lather in a silicone bowl (which we sell as the Rover lathering bowl) in the video below.

Face lathering

The suggested steps for face lathering are:

• Wet the whiskers on the area to be shaved and leave the area wet. Several repetitions of this step are best.
• Wet the brush, shake out the water and squeeze the brush so it is damp, but not dripping wet.
• Add a layer of water to your soap puck and immediately tip it out, leaving the puck with a thin film of water on top.
• Proceed to load the brush by swirling the tips in a circular motion for about 20 to 40 seconds (depending on the type of brush, brush size and moisture of the mix) until the tips of the brush are coated in a paste of the soap.
• Apply the brush to the area to be shaved by painting the whiskers with the soap, (dipping the tips of the brush in water if necessary to apply a coating of soap).
• Once the area is well painted, dip the tips of the brush in water and proceed to build the lather by pressing (splaying) the brush into the area and making quick, small circular motions. Repeat this step as many times as necessary, alternating with painting strokes, until the lather is thick, glossy and slick.

A helpful video on how to face lather – that also contains some history of Stirling soaps and a review of Stirling sandpiper soap – appears on the youtube shaving channel of Mark at Friendship Shaving. The full video is here:

If you just want to see the face lathering, Mark begins face lathering at 4.10. Mark is a very experienced wet shaver who has tried many, many products as is apparent from his channel. His comment on Stirling soap is “I think it is the slickest soap that I have used”. He also said “It has great residual slickness…there is a lot of glide in this, it is really good.” We couldn’t agree more, Mark. 🙂

Another video on face lathering that we can recommend comes from Cris at Another Cut Above. The video is here.

For a third example of face lathering (using a Stirling sample) see this video from Tim Shaves.

Here is a tutorial on bowl lathering from Chris at IAMCDB:

For even more information about lathering Stirling soaps, especially for those new to wet shaving, see this three-part video from minimalisto: