Thread: Selective Professional Strop

I'm fairly new to SR shaving. I bought a Selective Professional strop hoping to get a good deal. Being a noobie, I'm not sure which side of the darned thing I'm supposed to use for what, and I have no idea if it's worth keeping. It has a tan side and a black side. The black side has a bit of texture and is rather soft, and the tan side is very smooth and rather hard. Both sides appear to be leather, but the black side has some sort of cloth on the back. Take a look at the pictures below and tell me what you think.

I am going to guess you bought this on the internet (Ebay?) otherwise you would have asked whoever you bought it from. That’s ok I am a newbie and made the exact same mistake. I bought the strop from Ebay the razor from the shop, got home and gave it a go! Big mistake. The bad news is I did not find these cheap strops worth their money. The only thing I would advise (but then again I am a newbie) is that you keep it for a paste strop.

Look at videos in youtube and read read read the threads here. That’s what I did and I am hooked (and I haven’t started shaving yet, still waiting for my razor, strop, and scuttle).

Read the threads on razors and strops (and the newbies corner!!!) before you start. There you will get all the basic info you need and then you can come back and ask more detailed questions. Believe me when I say that many of the questions you have will be there.

The most important thing I would recommend is that you have a proper sharp razor. I bought mine in the store and my first experience was a very unpleasant one. Only reading threads here did I find out that a new razor is not “shave ready”.


May the force be with you

I'm also fairly new to this but think I can answer ...

There are two strops in one there. Both are used for a proper stropping session before each and every shave.

The one that is NOT leather is used first and used for a relatively few number of laps. Next the shiny side of the leather one is used for a much greater number of laps.

I have heard varying opinions of the right number of laps to use but this is to be expected because there is no way to know without actually being the one doing the stropping and having a bit of experience behind you. Until your skill level improves I suggest the following:

10 laps on the non-leather strop followed by
50 laps on the leather strop

A lap consists of running the razor along the strop in both directions. You will need to watch some videos (get Lynn's DVD!) to see how it's done. I guarantee you will mess up your strop before you become proficient at it so don't let that bother you. keep at it until you are good then get another strop. If you accept this from the beginning you won't feel so bad.

Originally Posted by TexasBob

The one that is NOT leather is used first and used for a relatively few number of laps. Next the shiny side of the leather one is used for a much greater number of laps.

See, that's the thing. There are two sides to this thing that I'm pretty sure are leather. One is a very supple textured black leather and the other is a very smooth hard tan leather. The only part of this thing that's cloth is on the back of the black side. Technically, I suppose it really has four sides since each color of leather is a separate strip. Two of these four sides touch. One of the center sides is black cloth, and the other is very rough tan leather. Stropping with the cloth side would involve taking the bolt out of the top and flipping the black strip over.

Also, I've read quite a bit of the wiki and a lot of the posts over in the newbie corner. Very useful stuff all around, but I haven't seen anything mentioned so far about any strops resembling this one. I'm not saying it's not there. I'm just saying I haven't seen it.

Originally Posted by OkieEngineer

Stropping with the cloth side would involve taking the bolt out of the top and flipping the black strip over..

Ah, OK. I am not familiar with that arrangement so my remarks don't apply.

I would guess that the smoothest available side was to be used last.

i don't have that strop but from picture i think black side is the leather strop side or you can call main side.another side you can put paste etc.hope i am right