Thread: A Newbie's question about strops

Hello, SRP forum

I'm still rather new to straight razor shaving, and I'm looking for information on how to care for a strop. I've found all sorts of information on razor care, but not so much on strop care.

Do they need to be cleaned periodically? If so, how often, and what do you use to clean them?

Also, what's this I've been hearing about conditioning strops?

Any information is appreciated.

qc,

Barbers of yore used to clean their strops with lather, it was handy and contained soaps and oils/fats. You could use that to clean your strop, or you could use saddle soap. However, the barbers of yore had a different situation from your's: they used their strops lots. Using a strop once a day isn't going to require its cleaning very frequently as too much of that good thing can cause the leather to soak up too much oil and create something that has way too much draw.

I have one strop that I use daily and have for a couple of years. It gradually picked up a bit of black coloring which I attribute to a bit of swarf from razor steel, or maybe some shaver's skin from my daily buffing it with my palm, or both. At any rate, I ran a pumice block over it a bit and followed that with rubbing it with a very lightly water dampened cloth - and it now looks very much like it did when new -- and it has the same draw as when new --- and that is something I did not want to change.

---- And there you go: one person's opinion.