Hot Lather?

One of my favorite experiences when I go to the barbershop is the hot towel and hot lather shave after my haircut which I will be getting sometime this week. Probably Monday to be exact. I also get asked about hot lather for a wet shave at home. Now there's 3 ways to achieve hot lather. The first way can be seen below in the form of a candle warmer which is fantastic. 

The candle warmer can be used to heat up your water to soak your brush in which is what I do while I'm in the shower getting cleaned up which makes for a great hot lather when you load your brush up. After that, I leave the coffee cup on the candle warmer during the shave between passes which not only keeps it warm, the lather continues to heat up and get hot. Sometimes it gets a little too hot but usually after the first pass, I unplug it and let it cool off. At that point, the lather is more than hot enough to retain its heat and I have no issues finishing off my shave. I also have a shave scuttle which can be seen below.

^ This specific shave scuttle I got from Straight Razor Designs which are out of business so as a result, this scuttle is no longer available. This specific one was built for face lathering and it works like a double boiler. You fill it up with water in both the brush cavity and the outer boiler and microwave it for 2.5 minutes and soak your brush while you shower before shaving. After that you empty it and refill the outer boiler with water again and microwave it for another 2.5 minutes. You should have hot lather before face lathering and the lather will continue to get hot until you get to about the 3rd pass (if you require one). Unlike the candle warmer which has its own heating element, this scuttle does not retain heat as long and the lather does not get as hot either. I've gotten many fantastic shaves with this scuttle and it's been zapped in the microwave repeatedly so if you are wondering or concerned about putting one of these or similar scuttles in the microwave, please don't be concerned or worry about it. It will not hurt it. I also have Phoenix Artisan Accoutrement's Crown King Travel Scuttle which can be seen below.

^ This specific scuttle is made for bowl lathering which I am not very good at to be honest about it. You simply fill it up with water like you would with the other scuttle I mentioned earlier and remove the rubber stopper and microwave it for only 1 minutes this time around because the scuttle will get too hot to handle and build a lather in mainly due to the fact that it's a heavy duty plastic based scuttle which is a good thing. This travel scuttle has also been zapped repeatedly in the microwave on a frequent basis so no worries about it getting damaged. In fact this Crown King travel scuttle is almost indestructible. Their newer version is even stronger and tougher than this one is. Leonard over at Shaving in the Desert shot his with a shotgun which was hilarious and the scuttle still held up and was usable. So you can throw it and do who knows what else to it and it will still be usable.

Out of all of these ways to get hot lather, my personal favorite is the candle warmer because it continues to heat up until I shut it off. My Straight Razor Designs scuttle holds heat better than the Crown King scuttle does due to the material it's made out of but I don't start with hot lather either. I have to load up my brush and face lather like normal before I can enjoy hot lather shave. My Crown King scuttle is much faster and I do start with hot lather on the first pass but I have to bowl lather and I'm not very good at that. Plus the Crown King scuttle cools off quicker due to the material it's made out of. Please don't get me wrong because I will NOT turn any of these methods away especially now that it's extremely cold outside these days. It got down in the upper 20's last night. And now that I've lost some weight, it does not take much for me to get cold at all. So ANY method you use to get hot lather is indeed a welcomed sight and then some. I don't regret any of my purchases when it comes to getting a hot lather shave at all.