After shaking the Baili goat+horse-hair brush as dry as I could, I began brushing Chiseled Face Sherlock soap, and to my surprise the brush — an extremely soft brush — began loading immediately. I did add some water as I continued loading because I wanted a lot of soap in the brush since, it still being new,, the lather runs sparse in the third pass.
I do like this brush, primarily because its softness is so different from other brushes. The first pass went very well — the Yaqi double-open-comb razor is wonderful — as did the second, but again the lather on the third pass came up a little short, though (if memory serves) a bit better than the previous time. So we’re getting there.
After 3 passes my face was marvelously smooth, a splash of Sherlock aftershave combined with a squirt of Hydrating Gel finished the shave pleasantly (though, to tell the truth, I don’t like mentholated aftershaves all that much in general).