Thread: Suede strop and irritation - new guy edition. . .

I have ~dozen straight shaves under my belt so far with a professionally honed Dovo Astrale, using Proraso pre-shave (white), Mitchell's Woolfat soap, Tweezerman brush, and Proraso After shave balm (blue).

My actual shaving technique has improved vastly, little to no nicks, even minor. However I have been experiencing greater irritation lately. The only thing that has change over the course of these shaves is the strop. I had a 1.75-2" Dovo leather strop that I couldn't hang properly, which was not helping my novice x-motion. To remedy this I bough a new 3" strop seen here.

Pegasus Shaving Strop

It has 2 "sueded" side, one rust colored and the other black. I still am not certain which side to finish with, but BOTH side obviously have more nap than my plain leather strop.

Just to be sure I used all the same gear, except for the strop and razor, in favor of my typical Mach 3 razor and experienced no irritation from the other products.

Is the suede strop sufficient to sharpen my blade in between shaves without the need for the other leather strop? If not, could it be causing the irritation as my blade is not as sharp as it would be using the other leather strop?

On a side note, my beard seems more prominent now that I can cut so close against the grain. Is this a common occurrence b/c of the angle that the hair is cut or could this be a by product of the irritation?

I think you are referring to what we call "scrub leather". This is similar to what the linen strops are for. They offer some benefit to the edge other than cleaning but I think of them mainly as a way to clean off the edge. I depend upon the smooth leather for pure stropping benefits.

Argh, And I already have a linen side to my other strop! It's only logical that a "loose" leather like that wouldn't do the same job as the smooth leather.

The good news is that my irritation should abate, but that I wasted more $ on an overpriced paddle strop. Maybe It will serve as a pasted strop in the future.

I'd appreciate any additional feed back form the gurus here if you've read this far.

P.S. I've tried to search this specifically regarding the x-stroke, but if instead I stropped the tip half and then the base half, is this acceptable or am I sharpening the middle too much?

There is a place for scrub leather and linen. You could paste one or the other. You could use your linen before you use your leather before a shave. You could save your scrub leather to clean the edge in between different pastes or hones, etc. There are a lot of options. If your strops are not 2.5-3 inches wide then you can either use an x-stroke or you can strop different sections. There is more forgiveness here than with hones so its all a matter of personal preference. If stropping correctly you can never really strop too much as to hurt the edge. You can only strop too much where you are not getting added benefit.

I don't think the strop would be responsible for the irritation. Somehow you are stropping differently and may be damaging the edge. I could be several factors. Different type of strop, different materials, size differences but whatever it is it's causing you to strop differently.

Strop very slowly and pay close attention to what you are doing.