I purchased a razor a few months ago and started shaving. Overall I was going very slow and things were progressing. I thought that I was doing pretty good and getting good shaves. I added another razor to the shave rotation and I noticed that the new razor was much smoother to shave with. I was not sure if this was because of the razor, sharpness, technique but in any case I was enjoying the shave. I decided to clean the razor up with some MAAS and that worked well but then the razor did not shave so smooth.

I have been trying to learn to strop my razors thinking this would help keep them sharp, but It looks much easier than it is. At least for me. I started pretty good, but counting laps, focusing on keeping the blade straight and the strop tight I found that I would get ahead of myself and nick the strop. I felt like a dork. I have nicked my nice strop a number of times now. It seams like when I strop my razors were getting duller not sharper. I know that I still have not got this right. I got a pasted strop with .5 diamond paste to try and help get my blades back to sharp. I thought that I was making a little progress as my shave yesterday was better.

Today I pulled out a new razor that is shave ready. WOW. nice smooth shave no pulling very close. Even my wife said that it was not pulling my face as much as I shaved. So I know that I still need to work on stropping my blades with better technique to get them truly shave ready. I hope that I figure it out soon. It feels like there is a number of things to master and I have not even started to use a hone to touch up an edge. I like the shave process but am a little discouraged that I'm such a nimrod learning this.

Thanks for the support and help.