Thread: Question about stropping:

Stropping before every shave is best and the most helpful (after too is fine as well). As you perfect your shaving technique over the years you'll start producing less damage to the blade per shave. Stropping smooths out very slight imperfections. After a while it becomes like washing clean dishes, polishing an already polished car, vacuuming a clean freshly vacuumed rug, etc.

The same people that have a hard time understanding this concept will pick up a DE razor and shave with it for 5 days in a row and think nothing of it. How is that possible? It just is . . . I've even worn the same shoes two days in a row without replacing the soles. They still seem to work pretty well.

But if your really negligent in your stropping and miss a few days, well then, you'll have to strop. MMMMM, that warning didn't really have the impact I thought it might.

I'll put it this way. If a razor can not be used for the first stroke of the second shave, then chances are it was not good for the last stroke on the first shave.

The comment about the softer vs. harder metals makes sense. I have no aversion to stropping, just want to do whats best for the razor/prolong the life of the bevel. I'm a detail-freak.