Hi all,

I'm pretty new to straight shaving. I bought a straight razor on a very inebriated college trip to Amsterdam about 20 years ago and after slicing a chunk out of my face, because I didn't know what I was doing, I was too scared to try again for quite a while.
For some reason I convinced myself that it wasn't sharp enough and made ham-fisted attempts to 'sharpen' it and made it worse.

A few weeks ago I used a whetstone (probably only about 1000k) to sharpen it and tried to shave again. I had more success this time and have been shaving with it for the last month or so, but I still think it could and should be sharper. With this thought in my mind, my girlfriend wants to buy me the right hone and strop for Xmas but said that I should choose which ones to buy, so, are these advisable:
Leather & Canvas Double Sided Strop For Cut Throat Razors: Amazon.co.uk: Health & Beauty
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ice-Bear-Wat...PG/ref=lh_ni_t
Also, should I get any strop paste?

Until Xmas, I will be back to using a Mach 3 as I'm getting loads of nicks.

The razor I bought is probably a quite cheap one, but it does say "Solingen Made in Germany".

All advice is gratefully received.