Thread: How NOT to strop

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

He strops like Livi! Another master in the making!

And at 2:20 he even shaves like Livi! It's spooky!

Turning the blade around the edge instead of the spine is not so much wrong, as risky. I think this guy is lifting the spine before lifting the edge, and that is wrong, but ... I wonder if we overestimate how easy it is to damage the edge. It isn't something I want to experiment with, I'll just keep doing it by the book.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

He strops like Livi! Another master in the making!

I disagree. Mastro Livi slaps his razor onto the strop, but it doesn't look like he lifts the spine during the stroke. And I suspect when he slaps it down, he's slapping either spine first or spine and edge simultaneously.

This guy is clearly lifting the spine off the strop whilst dragging the edge along the strop. And I don't believe for a moment he's doing his edge any good whatsoever. So he gets a shave from it -- Youtube can't show us how close or smooth.

For someone who hasn't had good instruction on how to do this, he does decent.

The main thing that any newbie should pick up from this is at the end where he says that you "put on after shave balm and feel better in a couple hours." I have some of the most sensitive facial skin of anyone on this board, and were I to shave like that, with weak lather and regular balm, my face would be one big seeping zit (not to mention on fire). You know you have gotten a genuinely good shave when you don't need balm and your face feels no different than before you shaved, with the exception of being hairless. I shaved right before posting this and feel nothing but exceptionally smooth skin.

The best way to find out if your blade and technique are spot on is to rub some rubbing alcohol on your face after you clean off the lather. If you did a good job, you won't feel a thing. If you didn't, well, you'll feel the burn. The best part of this method is you can feel where you did better and where you did worse. Typically, you'll feel almost no burning around your side burns, and progressively more burning as you get to your chin. The more it burns, the more you need to work on your technique in that area.

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

For someone who hasn't had good instruction on how to do this, he does decent.

The main thing that any newbie should pick up from this is at the end where he says that you "put on after shave balm and feel better in a couple hours." I have some of the most sensitive facial skin of anyone on this board, and were I to shave like that, with weak lather and regular balm, my face would be one big seeping zit (not to mention on fire). You know you have gotten a genuinely good shave when you don't need balm and your face feels no different than before you shaved, with the exception of being hairless. I shaved right before posting this and feel nothing but exceptionally smooth skin.

The best way to find out if your blade and technique are spot on is to rub some rubbing alcohol on your face after you clean off the lather. If you did a good job, you won't feel a thing. If you didn't, well, you'll feel the burn. The best part of this method is you can feel where you did better and where you did worse. Typically, you'll feel almost no burning around your side burns, and progressively more burning as you get to your chin. The more it burns, the more you need to work on your technique in that area.

I agree completely. I'd found when learning that I didn't need alcohol to test my results (I have sensitive skin as well), my alum block would sting in any areas that I didn't shave properly.

Bottom line. IMO A successful shave is one that's not only close, it also leaves no irritation even right after the shave. I don't need time after my shaves for my face to calm down, stop hurting, etc. Something is wrong in the equation if that happens.

Regarding the stropping in the vid: I'll stick with the barber manual - "the spine of the razor should remain on the strop at all times during the stropping process". It works for me.

Chris L

It looks to me like his stropping technique should work fine. It looks like he's already lifting the razor at the end of the stroke, so it's unlikely that he's putting too much pressure on the edge.

Jeff