I'm new at this; just starting to get comfortable moving this naked blade across my face and neck. I can get a SAS shave by making 2 WTG passes; the second pass I try to go just a little XTG. When I try to do a third pass in more of a XTG direction, the blade doesn't seem to cut anything. At this point, the blade just seems dull on the skin; not sure how to describe the sensation, just that it seems dull, or like the edge is rounded.

So today I tried to test the sharpness using the HHT method. I did that before the shave, after stropping and it was sharp. I did it at 3 different parts of the blade on both sides of the blade. After the 2 passes and attempt at the third, I tried the test again, and it failed miserably. So I stropped it and then it passed the test with flying colors. Before stropping the blade at the end of today's shave, there was a whisker that was a little longer on my neck, and I tried to cut it, but the blade wouldn't take care of it. After stropping, it cut it right off.

I don't think my whiskers are that tough; I can get BBS easily on my DE setup, without needing to change blades for up to 2 weeks of shaving.

Sorry about the length of this, but I wanted to be thorough in describing this. Can anyone give me suggestions, or thoughts on what is happening? Is it normal to have to strop again during the same shave?