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Do you strop before every shave?

Yes, on flax linen and leather before and more importantly on cotton linen after to clean the blade completely of any soap, skin, blood water or oxidation and dry it.

If you look at your bevels with magnification, after you wipe them down before putting the razor away, you will see all the above on the bevels and edge. All of that will oxidize/rust and eat the bevel and edge.

Stropping is your last chance to perfect an edge before it touches your face. Proper stropping is way underrated.
 

duke762

Rose to the occasion
To really demonstrate what stropping does for the edge, try shaving without stropping for a couple days. The edge will most likely get increasing tuggy during the first shave. I don't expect the edge to be even shavable after 2 or 3 shaves. It may even make you want to re-hone, but if you do you will most likely be in the same predicament because the edge started failing.

I suffered the woes of improper stropping and ineffective stropping. ( I frequently suffer from frequent assumptions, misinterpretations, cranial flatulence) It took me an embarrassingly long time to "get it" and get squared away. If you use magnification, you can actually see your strop cleaning up the apex. That helped me "get it" also.

Learn to love the fabric component, I had trouble embracing the zoop noises and it held me back.

Cheap out on a learning strop and learn. Then spend as much as you can on a really good strop and enjoy...

So yes, strop daily and stop well..... In fact, your entire straight shaving experience will depend on it.
 
I always strop before a shave. I go by the sound of the razor on the strop, not a set number of laps. Sometimes I do 10 laps, other times I'll do upwards of 60 or 70.

Different razors need more or less stropping. I find Swedish and Japanese razors need more than Sheffield or Solingen blades, but that is just my opinion based on personal observation.

If it matters, I use a homemade kangaroo leather strop.
 
For me, 30 laps on linen followed by 60 laps on leather before the first shave and then the same between each subsequent shave. Whether you strop before or after shaving matters. You want to at least strop the edge on cloth after each shave to remove any water and shmutz to avoid any oxidation on the edge.
 
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