Wet Shaving Without a Badger Hair Brush

Wet shaving without a badger hair brush is more difficult to get a good lather, but still provides an excellent shave. The brush and bowl serve to mix air into the soap/cream and water mix which creates the bubbles which give the lather volume, but there is still plenty of lubrication and some volume if you make the lather using a simple technique.

To shave without a brush, first wet your face with a liberal amount of water. Your facial hair should be very hydrated and water should be dripping off your face. Apply an almond size amount of shave cream to your hand and work your hands together to spread it around until your hands are uniformly covered. Rub your hands on your whiskers fairly vigorously until a lather forms. This lather will not have the same volume as you would get with a badger hair brush and shaving bowl. Instead, it will be more like your washing your face with soap. At this point you’re ready to shave. Make your first pass. Rinse your face and start again. On your second lathering, you will definitely notice that your second lather is even ‘flatter’. The lather will have progressively less volume each pass as there is less hair to work air into it.

Shaving without a brush has its disadvantages. The quality of the shave, at least in my experience, is almost identical to shaving with a brush, but tends to use more shaving cream. With a brush i use about an almond size amount per shave, without a brush, i tend to use about that amount per pass. Your hands will also be very slick because of the residual shaving cream which makes controlling the razor a bit more difficult and it is probably more dangerous as well so be careful. The lather doesn’t provide as much protection for your skin so it is probably better to be less aggressive with your shave until you adjust.

I would recommend a product like Kiss My Face or Tom’s of Maine for a brushless shave because they tend to be very lubricating and not as ’soapy’ as something like C.O. Bigelow in the green tube. I love the Bigelow, but it isn’t the best fit for this application, however i would love to hear what you guys think in the comment section.

I vastly prefer to shave with a brush, but it is nice to know that in a pinch i can still get an excellent shave with only a razor and shaving cream.

March 6, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Wetshaving

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