Was just looking at an old barber’s catalog online (very old) and their preferred method for breaking in a new strop included soaking the strop in urine for a few days (didn't say whose urine) and finally rubbing it with lead just before the first use, I'm assuming because we can all do with a little more lead in our blood stream. Gads, I’m starting to question what may have been done to the old strops I‘m using! If anyone wants to try out this method, let me know how it turns out.