Fill the cup with hot water & put the brush in there then have your shower.
When you get out of the shower empty the cup & squeeze the brush.
Swirl the brush on the soap so you can see a small lather on the end of the brush.
Put half a teaspoon of hot water in the cup & swirl the brush in the cup to make your later.

This works great for me (although I use a metal shaving bowl & a badger brush)

That's pretty much what I do, except I shower in the mornings and shave in the evenings. Gives a chance for the nicks/cuts to heal. This is what I do:

- soak brush in the lather bowl (cup) of hot water
- wash my face with face wash
- leave wet and apply a few drops of oil to beard
- soak a small face town in hot water and leave over face
- take towel off, empty out bowl and shake the brush. I don't squeeze it.
- work brush into soap upside down for approx 10-15 seconds until lather starts to form
- work lather using bowl and add drops of water at a time until get the desired lather
- work lather into face

I think the issues are related to the fact that the brush is synthetic (and may affect how I generate the lather), and that I'm using a cup like this: [url=cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290507984979]clicky[/url] Don't think it allows enough aeration for the generation of foam. It comes out as a rather thin foam. Lovely and warm though.

The wife got me a shaving lesson & shave for my birthday at the Geo F Trumper salon in London.
I guess this is where I find out my technique is rubbish

That's great news. Try and pick up some shaving products if you can - should be cheaper than online sources.

I've used the Gillette 7 o'clock razors. A couple of nicks but absolutely no razor burn. Got loads with the Derby and Astra blades but no idea if this is down to blades, improving technique, my skin adjusting to DE shaving, or all three.

or buy one of these bad boys

If you are looking for something a little more fancy than a disposable razor to shave with in the morning and have deep enough pockets . You could consider purchasing this double bladed Zafirro Iridium Razor, a snip at just, $100,000.00

The Zafirro Iridium Razor is equipped with solid white sapphire blades and has been designed to “launch a new era of shaving”. Helping boost the price of the razor is the handle which is made from 99.95 percent pure iridium, which the manufactures say is 10 times rarer than platinum and is only found in meteorites.

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/100000-zaf ... 1-06-2011/

images from http://www.geeky-gadgets.com

If only it was DE

I was thinking the same thing! It'd have been better if it was a DE razor!

Had my shaving lesson today.

I turned up to the Mayfair branch & asked the guys there if I could use my own razors (the gift voucher I had stated it was for Safety razors but kept referring to Mach 3's online) and they said it was fine.
Used my own brush & razors with them doing a demo on one side of my face/neck & me doing the other under their instruction.
Ended up with a rather nice shave, completely different technique to everything you find online but this seems to work for me. Also managed to do a beard map to find the best strokes to take.
Then managed to get 20% off of stuff I bought as part of the deal.

Not the cheapest shave you'll ever have but worth every penny.

A beard map is an excellent idea. It was one of the first new ideas I came across on the badgerandblade forum. I didn't draw one but it did make me aware of the "grain" of the beard. Mine is generally nice and straight down at the cheeks and just under the jaw but around the area under the mouth, it's almost spiral! Random different directions. Yet either side of this (where the handle bit would be on a handlebar moustache) and on the chin, it's also straight down. On the neck, my grain runs horizontally for 3/4 of the way across but the remaining 1/4 is horizontal in the opposite direction!

What was the technique you used?

I now do 1xWTG, 1xXTG and 1xATG on the face. On the neck, it's 1xWTG, XTG, ATG, and then kinda XTG but sliding at an angle. Got it down to four passes from six on the neck. I've stopped chasing after BBS and settle for CCS around the neck region.

I've tried Shark blades and they're horrendous. Some razor burn but the shaving action was rough, as though the blade wasn't sharp. The Lords Platinum ones are better but the Gillette 7 o'Clock ones are still awesome.

Currently have Treet and Wilkinson ones left to try. I also noticed some Personna blades in Morrisons yesterday. Will give them a try too I think.

Once I've gone through the entire pack (currently using one blade per brand), I'll try the entire pack of each brand and see how things go.

So I've finally tried one blade of each kind from my sample pack. Each blade was used three times beforw being disposed of.

Initial rating:
Good - Astra Super Platinum, Derby Extra
Better - Lord Platinum, Treet platinum super stainless
Best - Wilkinson Sword Double Edge, Gilette 7 o'clock Sharp Edge
Horrendous - Shark Super Stainless

The shark blades made me feel like I had been attacked by a shark! Poor cutting ability, lots of razor burn and nicks/cuts, no smoothness at all and poor result.

The Astra and Derby blades were very good for beginners as they were more forgiving, so less likely to get nicks and burn etc but not the best of cutting ability.

The Treet and Lord blades were better, and were closer to the more aggressive blades whilst still being fairly safe.

The Wilkinson and Gillette blades were very close in terms of performance and final effect. For me, the Gillette were that bit more superior. Both blades were IMO very aggressive compared to the others. No razor burn but still managed to get lots of nicks and cuts. The payoff is the fact that both of these blades gave me the closest shave out of the sample pack.

I now plan to go back to the beginning, starting with the Derby blades and work my through each sample set before moving on to the next. That works out to six months of shaving (if I don't use the Sharks; otherwise it's seven months). That means I'll have had 31 weeks' worth of shaving for £8, which is around half the price of my gillette proglide power blades. Given that I could have stretched each blade to four or five shaves according to badgerandblade.com, that's potentially a year's worth of shaving for £8. Not bad. It will only get cheaper once I buy the blades in bulk.

Have you tried feathers yet?

They're currently my favourite DE blade. Very sharp but as long as you know what you're doing you can get a DFS in a single pass

Ordered a Remington F7790 last night.

I'm definitely eager to try feathers but as you've said, you need to now what you're doing. I plan on going through the sample pack to build experience and get used to each blade. I then plan on moving on to Personna and Feathers, as well as a few others.

Send me over your address & I'll send you a couple to try out.

After getting annoyed that I can easily go through 2 KoS Azure sensitive blades with one shave (thick hair + sensitive skin, the blades get clogged incredibly quickly) I picked up an el cheapo Wilkinson Sword safety razor today and gave it a try tonight, seems the shave gel I normally use isn't the best for this kind of shaving and will need to pick up some foam until I can get a proper brush + soap.

A couple of nicks (moderate one in the middle of my chin and the rest were fairly superficial) and a couple of patches on my neck that aren't as smooth as they could be (had razor burn already so stayed clear) but on the cheeks/jaw it's a decent shave for a first go, much better than I would usually get, took only a little longer but I suspect that it would be quicker had I just showered

Can't wait to give it a go on a proper WTG XTG and ATG at some point when I have the opportunity to take my time on it!