The Splay!...a beginners ah-ha moment

I'm posting this to hopefully help someone just beginning like myself. If the info is wrong, please let me know so that I can pull the post down. I certainly do not want to pass bad info on.
I was having some issues with getting a good lather so I went on a mission to figure it out. I thought I was just using too little water; but, I had an episode where my lather went from paste to a thin consistency without getting to that awesome creamy/ yogurt state. Back to the research. After watching hours of video and reading hours of articles on building lather, I noticed something that I did not hear people talk about. The Splay! Big John, the Mad Scientist of Wet Shaving mentioned it without expounding on it and Chris Baily mentioned it while talking about a Plisson having the ability to splay better than other synthetics. Hmmm...I said to myself," I don't think my brush does that, EVER!"
I was using my brush almost like a paint brush. What I mean by that is I would maintain the integrity of the bristles while either making swirls, up and down, or painting strokes. I noticed that highly skilled practitioners would PUSH the brush on their face causing the bristles to splay out. Light bulb!
I tried it this morning and BOOM! Lather explosion after the third little addition of water. So, if your having trouble creating that big, thick, creamy lather you dream about, try the splay. Maybe you are just not aggressive enough with your brush.

Brent

By George, I think you've got it!

Look at it this way: when you apply lather by merely painting it on, you are only utilizing the surface area of the outside fibres or hairs of the brush. When you cause the brush to splay and use a circular motion, you are utilizing the surface area of nearly all of the fibres or hairs of the brush.

Now, the degree of splay desired by the user is a YMMV consideration, as is the amount of force required to achieve that degree of splay. The amount of backbone of the brush will determine how much force the user must use to achieve the desired splay. Backbone is determined by the loft of the knot, the diameter of the knot's fibres/hairs, the composition of the fibres, and in the case of badger or boar, where the hairs are from on the animal's body, where the animal lived and died and how many times a day he/she urinated! Just kidding. One can delve into the chemistry and physics of lather production as deeply as one cares to. We haven't even touched on the characteristics of the soap yet.

I had a near genius older half brother (recently deceased) who, if his interest was stimulated by such things, would take pencil and notepad to the "john" and within 10 or 15 minutes have worked out a whole bunch of the applicable chemistry and vector analysis necessary to make one small facet of his premise work. Our mother did not pass along his gene pool to me!

BTW I saw your post on another thread where you mentioned your Whipped Dog brush having become pushed in and matted or something. Splaying can do that to a brush if you are not careful to clean out the center of the brush while inverted and under running water after use. Then, shake the brush and paint with it on a dry towel until as dry as possible. Lastly, shape the knot to as near as possible to its original dry shape and hang inverted to thoroughly air dry before using it again. Animal hair brushes will take several times longer to thoroughly dry compared with synthetic. A good excuse to rotate two or more brushes.

Cheers!

I use a combo of circular and paint strokes. I would caution that although splaying your brush is key, I don't overdue it. I would guess that I don't engage much more than 1/3 of the knot loft or so when splaying. More than enough to get that great face feel and release lather but not so much as to damage the knot.

If you have some tangles, it also may be worth contacting Larry as well to let him know and see if you have any replacement options.

Shave on!

I think you two have me confused with another member. I don't own a boar brush. I'm using either the Shave revolution synthetic 24mm or the Stirling Synthetic 26mm. I kinda want a Semogue boar that a little smaller; but can't get myself to change anything right now. I just don't know enough. Thanks for your replies. I'll continue to work on my feel for the splay.

I think you two have me confused with another member. I don't own a boar brush. I'm using either the Shave revolution synthetic 24mm or the Stirling Synthetic 26mm. I kinda want a Semogue boar that a little smaller; but can't get myself to change anything right now. I just don't know enough. Thanks for your replies. I'll continue to work on my feel for the splay.

By jove, you are right! I saw Beamon's post about tangles and jumped on the band wagon. So... keep doing what you're doing

since I face lather, my 1st pass lather uses the circular motions..each pass after that is typically painting strokes. I think I read or heard somewhere that a lot of people don't do circular motions to reapply lather for the 2nd pass because they don't want to exfoliate freshly shaved skin too the point that it becomes irritated. I'm not a dermatologist or anything, so take that with a grain of salt.

I just brush on the lather for the second pass as well. Now that I'm learning to build a lather, I have way more than I need to complete the two or three passes and any cleanup.

When the brush splays you are able to get the lather further up into brush. The more soap loaded the better the lather.