Lather Logic for Strops

A Historical Perspective

Old barber manuals advocated lather for conditioning strops. Many of the best shaving soaps used tallow(rendered beef fat) for their soap base. Most shaving soaps leave at least 5% of the tallow unreacted.

So maybe their thinking back then was to replenish what was only natural to the leather?? Soap making in the old days was common knowledge, and also the ingredients.

Please don't experiment and slop tallow on your nice strop, the pure stuff will get rancid and I doubt that would be good, but if you already use lather to condition your strop it might make historical sense to use a tallow based shave soap.

This has come up a few times, It does work and does help the draw...

I have personally tried it with only two soaps Williams and MWF and both have worked fine..

Apply lather, let dry, use heel of hand to rub in "Repeat" that's it

I usually tell the story of a Illinois #827 that I decided to "Re-condition" and change from a pasted strop back to a plain strop I wanted to see if I could do it...
This strop always had a bad section, it set off the entire stropping action...
I sanded it, I rubbed it, I cleaned it, I conditioned it with near everything you could think of but that bad spot kept haunting me... I was basically done with it, when somebody asked about the Lather routine, "Ding" lightbulb went off that I had not tried this...amazing because I had used it in the past but somehow I never thought of it for re-conditioning...
Two applications of Williams and the draw was fantastic again...
Something to try out but experiment with caution

I've not tried this but wouldn't applying lots of soap eventually dry the leather out? It's like if you wash your hands too much, eventually your skin goes dry and cracks.

I'd hate to end up drying my strop out and ending up with cracked leather or something.

No offense guys, I know the subject of treating stops has been up before , it was the historical note that had my head going and how they may have come up with the idea in the first place.

Trying to get in the minds of folks back then.....you know.

In our world most of what average folks know comes in a package. That type of marketing was not as "advanced" for our ancestors. My degree is in chemistry but love history, probably that combo makes me silly, especially when putting the two together with the risk of being a charlatan.

In a previous thread there are two posts that stood out for me in treating a strop. One is by 'honedright' here. Scott has studied barber manuals over the years and that is where he got his info and developed his method. The other is by strop maker Neil Miller here. Neil needs no introduction.

I've never done any of these methods on my strops. I just do the palm of the hand rub every now and again but some guys and the old barbers swore by them. I don't favor a strop with a lot of draw so if these methods improve draw I'm going to stay away from them and leave well enough alone. If you like a lot of draw, or at least more than you have , give it a try.

I with Jimmy on this. I only use the palm of my hand to condition my strops. It's worked fine. If I understand the soap method correctly, it does increase draw somewhat, and loading up fine leather with soap can't be good. I like my strops the way they are. Old soap's were different, than the one's manufactured today, as you mentioned. I could never bring myself to rub soap or lather on any leather.

Now, I've restored an old strop before, using saddle soap, and cleaning the linen. Then, and only then did I use a small amount of neetsfoot oil to recondition the leather. I've read these posts before and I'm not quite sure what the motive is of the guy rubbing soap/lather on his strop. Damage or reconditioning is one thing, like Glen pointed out, but changing draw or boredom is another.

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Originally Posted by zib

I with Jimmy on this. I only use the palm of my hand to condition my strops. It's worked fine. If I understand the soap method correctly, it does increase draw somewhat, and loading up fine leather with soap can't be good. I like my strops the way they are. Old soap's were different, than the one's manufactured today, as you mentioned. I could never bring myself to rub soap or lather on any leather.

Now, I've restored an old strop before, using saddle soap, and cleaning the linen. Then, and only then did I use a small amount of neetsfoot oil to recondition the leather. I've read these posts before and I'm not quite sure what the motive is of the guy rubbing soap/lather on his strop. Damage or reconditioning is one thing, like Glen pointed out, but changing draw or boredom is another.

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I was cetainly not advocating the practice, merely wondering how it started. They probably thought they were putting back life into the strops by using what came from the animal itself? Of course I don't know that but historically plausable, anything that brings more life in a hobby-art like shaving the better.

You know what they say about history.... actually they probably don't say that anymore either.

I am always so amazed at how little my students know of it and I teach the smartest ones in our school. Naturally, we always work metalurgy and straight razors and soap in their lessons from historical and the chemistry behind it and how those develpments shifted destiny. They are amazed that people still use them(straights). We all have to spread the word to keep the art alive. Obviously, many members here old and new at all levels loving it more and more.

Too bad not more is done to connect history in all classes because the students are hungry for what they are not being fed. I don't get into the politics stuff but try to get them hooked on the idea of the hard sciences anyway I can.

I have always been of the mind that less is more with most things and strops fit into that frame of mind perfectly. With my new strops about the only thing I do is apply some neatsfoot oil a couple times a year and that's only because I live in single digit humidity and everything dries out, me included and I can't even use my palm cause it's as dry as a bone too.

With vintage strops I do initially some cleaning with bick leather cleaner and then leather treatment with bick and after that the usual neatsfoot treatment. The only strop I have not had to touch is my Kanayamara. it seems to be doing fine untouched for a couple years now.

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Originally Posted by Kingfish

I was cetainly not advocating the practice, merely wondering how it started. They probably thought they were putting back life into the strops by using what came from the animal itself? Of course I don't know that but historically plausable, anything that brings more life in a hobby-art like shaving the better.

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I realize you weren't. I believe the practice was mentioned in an old Barber's manual, and we had some members who actually spoke to old Barber's who advocated the practice.

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Originally Posted by Kingfish

A Historical Perspective

Old barber manuals advocated lather for conditioning strops.
....snip...

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With modern strop dressings so easy to find
this is my second choice but it does work.
It makes sense on a problem strop. perhaps when
the easy stuff does not work.

One of the things it lets you do is polish
the surface with a bottle as the lather and
leather dry. This can remove some but not
all imperfections.

It is a tool to keep in the old tool box.

It works very well. I think it came from the "use what is available" theory. It probably wasn't some scientific fat/tallow thing.

Scott (honedright) said it worked great for him in more than one old thread. He gave the best tutorial on it that I've read , in the thread I linked to earlier. I was interested but reluctant to get one of my strops that wet. When he told me that I had to rub it down with a bottle for 45 minutes I lost interest. My strops seem to be working so I'm not going to fix them. :)

Holy thread revival!

I have been using a Star Shaving 3" bridal strop for over a year and palm rub it every day whether I shave or not. I do this because since I got the thing it has had some weird draw issues. It had fast spots and it really effects the speed I can strop.

In the beginning it was ok because I stropped slow but now that I am honing more razors 100+ Slow laps on 3 or 4 razors at a time just takes too long.

Anyway, after this morning's shave using DR Harris Windsor soap, I decided to give this a shot. I left the lather on the strop for 11hours and just gave it a good palm rubbing and followed with a 100 laps on this mornings razor, a 6/8 French point Boker Arbolito. The draw has improved greatly! It is even and now has a nice medium draw.

100 fast laps now warms the blade a bit and tuned the edge nicely. I am excited to see how this effects some of the razors in my normal rotation.

Glad I tried it! Thank you!

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This particular soap contains natural tallow which is good for leather and I use it on one particular horsehide strop. Haven't noticed any thing on the strop surface that would upset me. Seems to work fine.

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Originally Posted by mrsell63

This particular soap contains natural tallow which is good for leather and I use it on one particular horsehide strop. Haven't noticed any thing on the strop surface that would upset me. Seems to work fine.

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Sort of...
Soap is made by the chemical reaction of fat (and oil) with alkali.
The generic reaction is saponification and the end product is soap.
When done correctly there is no alkali (lye) and no fat (tallow) left.

See: Saponification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since alkali is so hard on skin 'people' soap including shave soap
is hyper-fatted. Laundry soap and other "cleaning" soaps are slightly
rich in alkali and the alkali can react with grease and oil.

One interesting name game is Mitchells Wool Fat Shave soap.
By most measures lanolin is not a fat and is not saponified in MWF
but added as a conditioner to a well balanced tallow based soap.

Subtle but important.