Hey all! My names Chuckie! I'm just going into my second semester of grad school for my Masters in Computer Science.

My parents got me a straight razor, strop, and some band aids for my birthday so i'm super exited to try shaving with a straight razor. Being completely new I googled everything I could think of about straight razor shaving and kept ending up on this site so I decided to join!

I guess my first question I couldn't find an answer to is, should the leather side of the strop be perfectly smooth? Ill attach a picture of my new razor and strop so you can see what I mean, but the leather is wrinkled and has some marks on it. They aren't deep but they do have some texture to them.

This is my first razor so but i still dont want to ruin it using a damaged strop. Name: rzr.jpg Views: 139 Size: 46.0 KB