Thread: Hello everyone! Need help!

There are many good sub 50$ strop options out there. I find many beginners overlook the importance of building a good thick creamy lather on the face. If your lather is too thin and not moist enough it will not provide sufficient lubrication and will evaporate quickly. Spend the time to really work a nice lather on your face, your shaving technique will gradually improve and yes, good stropping is vital to keeping your edge at an optimal sharpness. Keep at it and you will see, your shaves will improve.

You can fold newsprint into a 3" width and secure it with a bulldog clip at one end, and strop on that. There was a post about it in the last couple of weeks. The beauty of newsprint is that it strops well, you won't cry when you cut it, and there's always more where it came from.

But yes, what everyone else said, a strop is a critical piece of gear. Without one, your razor will soon become useless.

Originally Posted by johnmrson

Unfortunately you need a strop. It is an essential part of your straight shaving gear. I haven't used the one that backtobasics has linked but I am a fan of the wider 3 inch strops.

Ok, buying one tonight.

Originally Posted by BobH

Hi and welcome to the forum

You are only 2 shaves in so I would suspect that your shaving technique and quality of lather you can make is more of an issue than razor sharpness at this point. For angle try using a gap of about 2 blade widths between your face and the spine of the razor for starters and adjust from there if needed. You need to make a nice thick lather with a constancy like whipped cream and not too dry. If the lather is too dry the razor will stick and skip. It is also a good idea to be stretching your skin while shaving.

To help maintain you razor you do need a strop to use before each shave. When you are starting out stropping can be a double edged sword in that generally your technique is not so good and you can possibly dull a razor with poor stropping. Unfortunately the only way to learn stropping is to do it and over time get it down correctly. The only thing I can say about which strop to get is to try and find a 3 inch one that is in your budget range. That way you don't have to deal with learning the X stroke while stropping which makes things a bit easier. Be prepared to learn strop repair as while learning we all have made a few mistakes which does nothing to help the blade sharpness either.

Bob

Thank you for your input!

Originally Posted by CaliforniaCajun

I have one and it is an excellent starter strop. This vendor sells replacement leather if you cut it learning how. It's good to get 3" because then you don't have to learn the X pattern while stropping. Here's a stropping video:

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You are like me in that you became fascinated with the use of straight razors in movies. These are some of the member favorites: http://straightrazorpalace.com/gener...rs-movies.html.

If the lather doesn't have a slick quality to it, add more water to your mixture.

I have a Dovo Best Quality razor and really like it. Good choice there.