Yes, it’s starting to seem a bit more complicated than it really is. Take the two strops you have, keep one plain leather and use it for every use stropping before each shave. 50 full passes (1 pass = 1 trip down, 1 trip back) is all you should need. It will not hurt to strop between passes on the same shave if you feel the razor needs it. I can’t say your current paste is wrong since I don’t know what it is. But I can tell you the .5 micron Chromium Oxide paste that member Chrisl sells for $4 is all you need. Take strop #2 and smear the dry CrOx on very lightly onto the smooth side. It’s that simple. Do 15 full passes on that pasted strop when you just don’t get any results on the regular strop. Or every two weeks if you are not sure by feel. Don’t worry about the rough sides of the strops, you don’t need them. Eventually you will need to have the blades rehoned, that happens to us all about twice a year.