Thread: Strop challenged

There's a lot of good footage & advice in some of the stropping videos at SRP that you could check out. Lots of helpful tips.

Stropping is not an easy skill to pick up. It can take years to master it, and sometimes many months to simply get the mechanics down. And during that time you will have good days and bad days - moments where everything seems to suddenly click followed by less than stellar experiences. It's all part of the process and nothing to worry about.

The only real way to improve is to practice, and to practice proper technique. So I would suggest you take some of the excellent advice offered here and find any stropping video you can get your hands on by AFDavis - I believe one of his videos is stickied in the Stropping forum. Study that carefully, and then slowly and deliberately, and at every opportunity, practice on your strop. Speed is unimportant and develops over time in a natural way - never force it, just let your arm and fingers find their own comfort zone and work within that all the time.

There are no shortcuts, but you can certainly make obtaining proficiency and muscle memory just that bit faster with consistent, committed, and regular practice. The reward, of course, is that you should see improvements in your shave. Just to give you an idea, I used to practice stropping at least 5 times a day for several minutes each time - not a lot when you think about it. Even now, I will often just go grab a razor and for the fun of it run it over the strop for a few minutes.

Good luck!

James.