Thread: Strop conditioning?

On the advise of some great individuals I did my first straight razor shave with the razor straight out of the box, shave ready and honed by Lynn. I am going to strop the razor tomorrow before the second shave (so excited.) My question is this, do I need to apply some sort of leather conditioner to the strop before proceeding? The strop is a 3-inch black strop from Straight Razor Designs. Also, what is the cloth part of the strop for, and do I need to use that before I strop on the leather, after stropping on the leather or do I use it at all my first time? Again this will be only the second time I use the razor and it was honed by Lynn prior to me using it. This will be my first time stropping and I will be doing it while watching a stropping video on Youtube by Lynn.

By the way, the first shave couldn't have gone any better. Smooth as silk, no cuts, no irritation. Fantastic.

I'd advise against putting anything on your strop.maybe do 5-6 passes with the palm of your clean and dry hand prior to stropping .srd strops are quite nice usually already.remember to go slow and very light and come to a complete stop before flipping at the end of each pass on the (spine of the razor) <<that's a big one remember to savor the process and have fun !

Thanks Blistersteel. Will do. 5-6 passes with a clean dry hand can be done tonight. This wait is killing me, I'm tempted to take some of the wife's pre-natal vitamins to make the whiskers grow faster.

There are many opinions on the cloth. Many use it every day and some pass on it all together. The only conditioning you need is working the strop with the palm of your hand before use. That will transfer some oil to the strop. Unless the strop over time shows signs of actual dryness I wouldn't use anything. if it does seem dry a couple drops of neatsfoot or a quality conditioner will do the job. I live in almost zero humidity and at most 1x a year for a bit of neatsfoot is all I ever need.

I've used Fromm Strop Conditioner - great stuff...a little dollop will do you....

Before you add oil or conditioner you may want to read what Isakawi said about strops…

As my son says “He makes a lot of Damn sense”.

Page 4, Strop maintenance.

Link Here.

TBH i usually just rub the palm of my hand 10 to 20 times on it before i use it!

I just rub the leather with the heel of my hand until the strop feels warm.

Just to give you a sense of scale, I got my first SRD strop about 5 years ago and others have followed since then. NONE have needed any kind of oil based conditioning in that period of time. Moisture leaves a strop but the oils do not. Every few months I wipe the working surface of each strop with a cloth that was only slightly damp. I do this by dipping half a wash cloth in water, folding it over, and wringing it out. This is what I use to wipe the strop. It cleans it and leaves a slight amount of moisture behind. The leather absorbs what it needs and twenty minutes later I wipe each strop with a dry cloth.

Watch the video… then strop.

Stropping requires 100 percent attention, do not talk to anyone do not move for anyone. If my bride comes into the room while I am stropping, I stop, if she asks a question, I stop.

Divert your attention for 1 second and you will cut your strop.

The key to stropping is light pressure, very lite pressure and lots of laps, 50-100. Consider it your final polish.

Keep the spine on the strop at all times, stop then flip and go slow. 100 laps will take you about 2 minutes.