Thread: Pros and cons of using lather to treat strop

Lather is not used to "treat" a strop. It is used to modify it's effectiveness. This seems to create confusion for beginner and intermediate practitioners alike. Lather is used to "treat" your strop the same way lather is used to "treat" your face before a shave. Then, allowing yourself to be corrected by someone telling you that a facial cream would be "better". You use the lather on your face and on the strop for the same reason, to improve your shaving experience. If you ask enough people eventually someone will point out that honing isn't really a good way to "treat" a razor.

Applying lather to a strop is designed to produce a greater stropping effect in less time. I would guess that about 60% of people that shave with a straight are using a poorly performing strop. A significant portion of those probably quit early in the learning curve because they are influenced to think that it is their technique that is the problem, not the equipment. This is true for shaving and honing, but much less so for stropping, which is a very simple act that relies almost completely on the surface action to produce the desired effect.

I've always believed water and leather don't mix and don't know any leather application where they recommend cleaning with water. They have certain treated leathers but that's another story. So after-all why would a strop be any different? Whether your aim is to clean a strop or condition it I think there are better ways than with a product using water. They have conditioners and of course the old oil from the hand and for cleaners there are products containing no water or harsh chemicals.

Originally Posted by PhatMan

Steveorocks,

+1 on Zib's observation that soaps were different back in the day; IIRC they were more 'over-fatted' than the majority of modern formulations.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

No doubt the soaps were different back then. I had a few of the teachers at barber school say they used lather once in a while on their strops to keep them supple. One of them said it is important to have a soap that has tallow in it to get the desired effect. I have tried neatsfoot oil, as well as a soap/lather with tallow, and I think my preference leans towards the soap. Just make sure it's a tallow soap though. If you can't find one, Ivory soap is what the one instructor said he uses. A quick search will show that the 1st ingredient is tallow.