I honed a razor last night, when I was done the bevel as seen through my $12 microscope
was almost black, just a few faint lines were visible, just as expected.

After I stropped on a poly stop loaded with green compound then leather I happened to look
again, to my surprise the bevel looked like it had just come off about a 6k grit stone.

I always thought that stropping polished beyond what a stone could do and that was the reason
the razor would get sharper, doesn't seem to be the case here. My curiosity up I honed again and started checking each strop I had to see what effect it had on the bevel.
I tried poly with green compound, linen with dovo white, cotton with dovo white, linen with
diamond spray, a whipped dog leather strop, and a shell leather strop, they all left scratch marks
on the bevel, some more than others but all left marks. The one that surprised me the most was the shell, it left far more marks than the whipped dog leather, does that mean it is doing more sharpening or less?

Can somebody explain to me why the edge appears less refined but gets sharper when I strop it?