Thread: Mink Oil or Mink Oil Paste?

Just curious, has anyone else used mink oil paste on their strops? Is the paste okay or not? I know it has silicone in it and I'm not sure if that will harm the strop or not.

I would not use it, but that has nothing to do with any silicone that may or may not be in it.


There was a discussion about this a few months ago, and the issue is that "if" you can find real mink oil, which is unlikely these days, it's made from the rendered fat of the mink - Mink - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aside from some obvious heinous animal cruelty issues related to how they are raised commercially, which is a topic for another thread, it's not good at all for a strop that is put together with stitching.

Mink oil has a nasty habit of turning rancid and rotting, taking the stitching with it.

Even if your strop is put together with clamps and hardware, I still wouldn't use it, and there are a lot of reports of it damaging leather over time as well.

Mink oil became popular because it was a bi-product of the fur trade. MUCH better options have been developed, making it far less popular. I'd stick to comercial strop dressing, neatsfoot oil, or lexol.