As I'm gradually learning straight-razor shaving, one thing I've noticed is how long whiskers are just as easily shaven as short stubble (maybe even easier). Compared to multiblade razors where anything over a day's growth starts to clog the blades.

So this led me to the idea that the straight razor would be perfect for cleaning up my legs. For anyone hung up on the masculinity issue, I do bicycle quite a bit so that's my cover for what it's worth. I have only ever bothered with it a couple of times over the years because I'm a pretty hairy guy and going about it with a multiblade took forever and led to terrible irritation from all the passes forcing clogged blades over and over the same spots.

The leg-shaving went really well, and it was simply amazing to see such large swaths of skin instantly cleared. Some spots were tricky but in a way it was a good learning experience in that the long strokes helped illustrate blade angle effects and tracking a surface in a way that the shorter face strokes don't. And there was no irritation whatsoever!.

Anyway, to get to the point, the blade didn't seem quite as keen for this morning's face shave. Maybe I didn't strop frequently enough during the leg shaving -- only stropped in-between legs figuring the hair is fine and sparse enough compared to face whiskers. But now I'm wondering if some of the shaved hair getting in the way of the blade might have been a problem after all. Probably should have stopped to clean the blade more frequently.

I did some extra work on the strop and that helped somewhat, but the edge still doesn't seem to be where it was. Under magnification the edge seems ok but there is about a 1mm spot where I think the edge is rolled just a bit. Not sure if it was from the extracurricular shaving or something else.

Is the CrO paste a logical next step? I did get some of the paste with my initial purchase. Though I don't want to use it on my 2-sided paddle strop and will get another strop for the purpose. In the meantime I think I've read where one can use newsprint as a temporary strop. Would it be reasonable to tape a few layers of paper to my countertop, rub a bit of CrO paste into it and strop on that?

Beyond pasting, I'd like to start thinking about getting a stone of some sort for touch-ups. What's a good choice? I am looking for just a single stone at this point. 8K, 12K or would it matter that much? Do all stones need to be "flattened", and how often is that needed if you're just running a few strokes once in a while to keep a keen edge?

Thanks!