The problem with the "shave test" is that it's not a test, it's a shave. When I shave. I'm not testing the blade's sharpness. I'm shaving with it. The shave is the ultimate goal, so logically it cannot function as a test of the blade's sharpness. It's the ultimate performance of the blade, but some testing (like a dress rehearsal) is helpful to know when the blade is ready for shaving. I can only shave so much. If you work on understanding the HHT, learn its complexities, and customize it to your own hair and usage, then it can tell you something.

If you want to explore the HHT, first of all forget about "popping" and cutting hair with it and instead try to use it to gradually gauge what effect your stropping (and later, honing) is having on the blade's sharpness.

Get some hairs from various parts of your body, like your arms, chest (I'll leave the rest to you), hairs of various thickness and stiffness. Then, as you strop and want to check your progress, hold your razor edge up and bring the hair downward into the blade slowly. Don't look so much for "popping" although you might see that. Look for the edge pulling on the hair, then tugging at it, then cutting a piece of it off. You can hold the hair close to its end or hold it half an inch or an inch away from the end. You can thus vary the force you are applying to the blade with the hair. As you see progress, you can then hold it farther from the end as the edge seems sharper.

Just remember that there really is no one HHT. It is a customizable method for gauging sharpness as you bring an edge to sharpness. It took me quite a bit of time, and some help from a member here, to find a way to make it of us in my honing and stropping. The way I perform it, and with my hair, it gives me an indication of when I have stropped enough. When my blade tugs the hair, then cuts off a piece (and based on my individual experience with the process), I know I have a blade I can shave with. That allows me to approach the shave as fun, not a matter of testing.