Thread: made a strop... now what?

I just finished my first leather work project, a strop, even before I've actually shaved with a straight razor for the very first time, because I need to send it off to be honed. I was looking at cheap strops online because i was advised here that a beginner has a tendency to shred their first strop. But even the cheap ones were about 35 bucks with shipping up here to Canada. So I decided to make my own 3" wide strop. Well its very heavy (about 9oz) cow hide leather (undyed/treated) and thus very stiff. Do I condition it with oil or leave as is. The guy at the leather shop said olive oil is a good conditioner, but he doesn't know anything about strops. Anyway, what now?