The effect of Water on Lather

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Essex, UK
I'm opening this up for a discussion and research really.

What do we think we know, hard water makes it harder work getting a decent lather. We have Norfolk residents who have abandoned MWF because of it. We have Linconshire residents needing a separate bowl to generate lather.

But then we have me, who also has hard water, being a brewer I know my water's chemistry intimately, I can lather MWF with a quick (30 second) swirl of the puck, then onto my face for a face lather.

Two possibilites.
1. Its just technique and I'm better. Highly unlikely.
2. Its not hardness at all that matters, but something else. Could it be the Alkalinity of the water, or some other mineral content entirely.

Anyone any thoughts. I'd like to understand this as I keep seeing posts from people saying its the fault of their hard water that they can't lather x and I think, but I have hard water and it works fine for me. MWF is my favourite soap.
 
Technique

I live in a hard water area and can bowl
Or face lather most soaps.

I never get a really creamy lather when doing face but in a bowl it's like whipped cream. Just takes a little effort and perseverance
 
Just returned from Holiday at Niagara Falls , Canada. (Would have a photo for you but this feature has been Disabled!!:)-(
Using a Palmolive stick by face lathering alone there was very difficult. The lather was almost like 'paraffin' on your blade. Using a brushed helped but not much.
 
If you have hard water then it would also be alkaline.
Hard water contains contains calcium and magnesium, both are alkaline.
I have hard water compared to those just a few miles away, but it is still very soft compared to most south of the border. My wife is always complaining that she can't get her shampoo to work quite right and quite often goes to her mums before a night out just to wash her hair. I also notice a difference if shaving somewhere else, but not enough for me to worry about it. I still get oodles of luxurious creamy lather at home, just not as much as elsewhere.

I think if you live in a hard water area your lathering technique will have to improve to get the best you can. If I had a trip down your way I probably wouldn't be able to get any lather at all as I am not used to having to work at it. Conversely if you came up this way you would probably produce more lather than me as your technique is better.
 
This is way too generalised for a research prooject! First off you need to know the degree of hardness of the water being used and then you need to know the type of soap being used. The earlier posts demonstrate this.

The harder the water, the more difficult to get a lather. The better the technique, the higher the chance of producing a lather - which means using enough soap to soften the water and then enough to produce a lather (30 sec swirling).

You can soften a basin of water by adding bath bubble stuff and Chris reckons the addition of bicarb also works and is cheaper.

A water softener installedd at your mains inlet takes care of all hardnness issues.
 
Having soft water straight off Dartmoor I can't imagine how much lather I would get from 30 seconds of swirling with MWF. Ten seconds gives me 3 passes plus touch ups if needed.
When I used to live in Andover it was noticeable that I needed more soap or washing up liquid to get a decent amount of bubbles but that was before I started shaving with a brush and soap. The water there used to regularly have lumps of calcium in it.
 
Bechet45 said:
This is way too generalised for a research prooject! First off you need to know the degree of hardness of the water being used and then you need to know the type of soap being used. The earlier posts demonstrate this.

The harder the water, the more difficult to get a lather. The better the technique, the higher the chance of producing a lather - which means using enough soap to soften the water and then enough to produce a lather (30 sec swirling).

You can soften a basin of water by adding bath bubble stuff and Chris reckons the addition of bicarb also works and is cheaper.

A water softener installedd at your mains inlet takes care of all hardnness issues.
Click to expand...

Absolutely (and thanks for the mention, Carl)! Also, bear in mind that there's "hard" water, and then there's really hard water. On the map below, I'm in the dark pink "very hard" >300 mg/l calcium carbonate category; by contrast, much of Essex (not sure exactly where our brewing mate Steve is on that map) is pale pink (>200 mg/l but <300 mg/l) which could partly explain the difference. To give you an idea of how hard our water is, I can take a brand-new razor out of the box, install a blade, shave, rinse well and, unless I immediately dry every last bit of moisture from every last bit of it, the next day there'll be areas where there's a fine film of limescale dulling the finish. My Gillette Slim TTO mechanism becomes very stiff to operate only a matter of 3 months after I last gave it a bath in a vinegar/water solution with washing-up liquid, which gets the mechanism working smoothly.

http://dwi.defra.gov.uk/consumers/advice-leaflets/hardness_map.pdf

Magnified versions of a similar map:

Norfolk:

nr-postcode-hard-water-map.png


Essex:

essex-hard-water-map.png


Southampton (for Carl):

so-postcode-hard-water-map.png
 
There was a similar debate on Straight Razor Place recently and one contributor suggested that it's not necessarily the water hardness that matters so much as the concentration of sodium chloride - I have no idea whether this makes sense but maybe some of you with a better understanding might want to comment.

My own ways of combating hard water here have included adding bicarbonate of soda or dishwasher salts, nowadays though a dash of glcerine seems to help.
 
chrisbell said:
...Also, bear in mind that there's "hard" water, and then there's really hard water. On the map below, I'm in the dark pink "very hard" >300 mg/l calcium carbonate category; by contrast, much of Essex (not sure exactly where our brewing mate Steve is on that map) is pale pink (>200 mg/l but <300 mg/l) which could partly explain the difference.
Click to expand...

Maybe not - that map is incorrect. I'm in Brentwood and I've measured the water out of the tap here. It's between 350-400mg/l. Other water maps I've seen shows CM15 as "very hard" i.e above 300mg/l. I'm pretty sure Steve's water is similar.

Our water is just as 'ard as yours :p :icon_cheesygrin:

Another factor to consider is that there's a difference between temporary and permanent hardness in water. My chemistry doesn't go beyond 'O' level standard so I don't know what this means or how this could affect the lather, but one of them is worst for causing limescale formation.
 
p.b said:
chrisbell said:
...Also, bear in mind that there's "hard" water, and then there's really hard water. On the map below, I'm in the dark pink "very hard" >300 mg/l calcium carbonate category; by contrast, much of Essex (not sure exactly where our brewing mate Steve is on that map) is pale pink (>200 mg/l but <300 mg/l) which could partly explain the difference.
Click to expand...

Maybe not - that map is incorrect. I'm in Brentwood and I've measured the water out of the tap here. It's between 350-400mg/l. Other water maps I've seen shows CM15 as "very hard" i.e above 300mg/l. I'm pretty sure Steve's water is similar.

Our water is just as 'ard as yours :p :icon_cheesygrin:

Another factor to consider is that there's a difference between temporary and permanent hardness in water. My chemistry doesn't go beyond 'O' level standard so I don't know what this means or how this could affect the lather, but one of them is worst for causing limescale formation.
Click to expand...


I think the map I linked to (being from DEFRA) is probably slightly more accurate, and it correctly puts you in the very hard category.:icon_razz:
 
I live slap bang in the middle of the light pink area on the Essex Map, My water, just tested measures 387 mg/l calcium carbonate, so that should be in the very hard category.

I know when it comes to brewing beer, people always talk about the hardness of your water, but actually it is not how hard, but the Alkalinity of the water that really matters, and the Alkalinity can vary enormously across water that measures the same hardness.

I think there is more to it than how hard water is. I can lather MWF easily, in fact this morning I timed myself and I did a 10 second swirl on the puck then face lathered. This gave me a fantastic lather, however chrisbell can't make the stuff work. Even if our water hardness is different it can't be that far out, there must be something else causing the difference. I have no doubt chris knows how to make lather, so what is it in our water that makes it work for some people and not for others.

I need to think about this.......
 
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