Recently, everything clicked a bit for me and I've had significantly better shaves. Still, I had been noticing a lot of pulling and the blade skipping over my skin. After a short trip to a barber hone and another short trip to a pasted strop, I had the absolute best shaves ever. The blade went through the hair like butter...it was so easy. But then my second shave after the hone/strop wasn't as good. The third was a disaster. Back to the pasted strop. Best shave again. And then another precipitous dropoff. What seems to be happening is whatever I do on the hone and pasted strop is only enough to get me one great shave. Tonight I shaved with an un-pasted razor and it left a lot to be desired, with a lot of pulling. Initially, I thought no problem, I'll just do the pasted strop before every shave. Right? But that doesn't seem right to me.

It seems it could be one of three things: technique, blade quality or just the characteristics of my face. It could be all of them for all I know.

Well I'm not sure what to do. Am I being unrealistic in my expectations of blade-sharpness? I've asked about it here many times in the past 3 months, so it's been on my mind. After years of destroying electric razor foils and mach 3 cartridges at an extreme rate, I wonder if I'm just oversensitive.

I'm also wondering if it's realistically possible to use a pasted strop with every shave? Would it destroy my blade or otherwise cause damage? I shave 3 times a week. Suppose I were to use my barbers hone every 3-5 shaves and my pasted strop before every shave?

Also, is the fact that this is a problem an indicator of a bad blade? It's a 1930s CF Wolfertz, which seems to have a decent rep.

Unless I'm otherwise doing something wrong, it seems that I'm getting a duller blade after one shave. What do I do?