Thread: Too Much Stropping?

Twenty some odd years ago a barber in his seventies, who had been cutting hair most of his life, told me that you can over strop a razor. OTOH, as Chrisl said, I have seen many barbers in my sixty years use there strop before during and after a shave. The same barber who told me the above also kept a Swaty in his smock and would use it to "touch up" (his words) a razor if necessary. He did that dry BTW. On stropping I have been going with the more is better viewpoint that I have seen on this forum and the results seem to be satisfactory.

You have to remember barbers used their razors continuously all day for shaves and trims so they would strop before every customer. I still remember seeing that when I was a kid getting haircuts in the 19xx ho hum. Yes they would do maybe a dozen strokes or so. personally I think it was part showmanship like when you go into a japanese restaurant and they cook at your table. Here they would pull up the strop which hung on every chair and slap the razor back and forth. In any case we just shave 1x a day so what is in the barbers Manual does not apply to home use in this case. Or at least that's my story.