To strop or not to strop? The question was answered long ago, right? Well, I admit to stropping far less than I used to... And at times I'll skip it entirely without a loss of a good shave.

For some time I faithfully stropped 20-40 times before shaving, then was in a rush one morning and--thinking to my peril--skipped stropping. Wow. No difference. I used the same razor again the next morning w/o stropping. Same great shave.

Now (empirical knowledge, I suppose) I rarely strop, instead spending 6-10 minutes on occasional weekends methodically stropping my entire 10-razor rotation array. Frankly, gentlemen, it's faster than the pre-shave strop I felt obligated to perform.

Anyone else make a similar breakthrough? Heresy, I know.