Hone or strop paste?

As a noob I am heeding the collective wisdom and concentrating on my shaving and stropping skills; I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at how therapeutic the process of stropping is, almost like meditation. Despite this I cannot help but think on ahead and wonder how I will overcome the issue of sharpening once stropping itself is not enough; do I keep a rotation of razors and send some away to be honed, or do I look to learn another skill and enhance that sense of self sufficiency that sharpening ones own razors must surely bring. that being the case do I go the honing stone route or the paste? I would expect the stone to be more efficient at resetting an edge, but I feel the strop paste might present a shorter learning curve. Or am I so far off the mark that I should go out and buy a Phillishave?

Well, it never hurts to have a spare or twelve, but a pasted strop can extend the shaveability of an edge for quite some time. The obvious downside of sending a razor out for honing is the turnaround time, whereas the downsides to doing your own honing are the initial outlay in hones and the time it takes before you achieve usable results - especially if you don't have a mentor nearby to learn from. My personal path involved using a pasted strop and professional honing followed by learning to do touchups on a finishing hone, then finally the full honing circus. However you proceed, best of luck!

Hone/Stone ,,,,,,,,,,

Well I have a couple of thoughts. The first is a little early is always easier to stay on top of than a lot later. So if you are just wanting to maintain your blades a CrOx strop is cheap and easy, but not everyone like the finish. You can get a pasted bench strop for not much coin. See how you like it and then either continue with that process or buy a hone. You will need a nice finish hone, either a natural or a synthetic. By the time you get there you can look at many options.

I use both, which depends on far gone the edge is. I touch up a lot of my razors on a hanging linen strop coated with Thiers Issard White Paste. Works a charm and leaves a smooth keen edge. I like pastes and get great results....YMMV and all that

I've had a lot of success myself with a pasted balsa strop with my blade, about a month old from SRD. I do plan on getting some hones later down the road though. But hey like sqzbxr said it never hurts to have an extra one or twelve razors [emoji1]

A good Barber hone can be your best friend. I have a Swaty I keep in the bathroom. If I feel the blade is dull, I slap a little shave lather on the Swaty, do 5 strokes, and finish up my shave right off the hone. Much more expedient than stopping, drying the razor, doing 10 laps on CrOx, restropping on Linen and Leather, and hoping I've got it straight.

I suggest snag a stone or two and a barber's hone - you will not regret the zen-like feeling of honing from feedback, to introspection, to metallurgy, to different variations of success. I love the sound an tactile quality of honing itself. Natural stones offer some many options - I enjoy my shaves more when I think of honing a sharper edge and/ or more comfortable edge. Good luck to your endeavors!