Post Shave: Barrister & Mann - Vespers - Aftershave
Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. - Unscented - Balm
Osma: Osma - Osma
Scuttle: Georgetown Pottery - G20
One of the main reasons I repeat my shaving setup day after day is I have soap left in the bottom of my scuttle from GUTLing and don’t feel like scooping it out and putting it back in the container.
Man, I haven’t used my GP scuttle for it’s intended purpose in forever. I loved the idea when my girlfriend (now wife) bought it for me several years ago, but I eventually realized I enjoyed face lathering more. Nowadays I really only use it as a lathering bowl for samples, but now that the weather has turned cold it’s starting to sound appealing again.
I essentially do a combination bowl lather/face lather called the GUTL. Essentially begin building your lather in your bowl, continue on face, then back to bowl, until you get a good lather from the combination of the two.
Place wad of soap into a bowl or scuttle, pressing it thin.
With a damp brush, swirl your brush in this soap until it develops into a thick protolather. You may need to add a little water, but not too much.
When you have a good protolather, move to your face. Begin using standard face lathering techniques to build a base of protolather on your beard area.
Once the lather base has been built, move back to your bowl. Add water, building volume to your lather, getting it slick and ready to use.
Move back to the face, adding more water to the brush to refine the lather on the face and preparing for the first pass.
Finalize your lather in your bowl, bringing that bowl lather to your face and mixing it up, giving you a Grand Unified Lather.
As you move forward with your second and third passes, the lather in the bowl will serve as your Lather Reservoir, enabling you to not run out of lather for three, maybe four passes.
It’s called the GUTL for Grand Unified Theory of Lathering.
Awesome, thank you for this detailed explanation. As I was just saying elsewhere, I only do 2 pass shaves, so this is likely to produce way more lather than I’ll need. But there are worse problems to have and this does sound effective. Will try it out soon.
Nov. 29, 2023
One of the main reasons I repeat my shaving setup day after day is I have soap left in the bottom of my scuttle from GUTLing and don’t feel like scooping it out and putting it back in the container.
That and this setup is fucking awesome.
Man, I haven’t used my GP scuttle for it’s intended purpose in forever. I loved the idea when my girlfriend (now wife) bought it for me several years ago, but I eventually realized I enjoyed face lathering more. Nowadays I really only use it as a lathering bowl for samples, but now that the weather has turned cold it’s starting to sound appealing again.
I essentially do a combination bowl lather/face lather called the GUTL. Essentially begin building your lather in your bowl, continue on face, then back to bowl, until you get a good lather from the combination of the two.
Just love using the G20 whenever I can.
That sounds like a fun method. Do you add water to the bowl or your face, or both?
Here’s a rundown of the process:
It’s called the GUTL for Grand Unified Theory of Lathering.
Awesome, thank you for this detailed explanation. As I was just saying elsewhere, I only do 2 pass shaves, so this is likely to produce way more lather than I’ll need. But there are worse problems to have and this does sound effective. Will try it out soon.