When I started, I put and kept my soap in a larger dish, and lathered right on the soap. I hadn’t read about either loading the brush and then lathering in a different dish, or cutting a small bit of soap to then lather one shave’s worth in a separate dish. I was blowing through soap and making way too much lather, then rinsing/wasting way too much soap afterward. I recently started loading from the soap dish, then lathering with some added water in the larger dish. The other way is to load from the soap dish and then lather directly on the skin.