How to get the day 4 feeling day 1?

The day I dreaded arrived. After a couple of months of shaving my razor was getting dull to the point of being uncomfortable. I decided to use my Norton 4K/8K combo and 12K Chinese to bring back the edge. I stropped the razor a good 200 full strokes on the linen and 200 on the horsehide.

The shave was so bad I thought I must have done something wrong on the honing. I decided to hone again and went right back to the 1K and included 10 strokes on a balsa strop with CrO. Did the same stropping routine. I shaved again for the second time that day. A bit better.

Today, the forth shave with that razor, I had the best straight razor shave I've ever had. The blade is working smooooooothly.

Is there a shortcut to getting to this smoothness day 1?

What did you do over the course of those three days, aside from stropping and shaving?

Gotta know all the variables to be able to take a guess.

Are you thinking it was the chicken vindaloo I had last night?

Nothing special.

Well, if you didn't do anything to the blade, I would guess it's just the extra stropping. Could be that your edge was just a little rough right off the hones.

I imagine its the stropping that helped. Also, focus on an extremely light touch when using the Norton and chinese stones. I was getting harsh shaves off the chinese and I bought a slurry stone for it and started using a slurry with a 50 lap-test-50 lap method. I would also recommend getting a pasted hanging strop with CrOx because I find it works better than my home made pasted paddle strop with latigo leather.
Just an opinion though.

Thanks treydampier and holli4pirating. I think I'm going to have to attribute at least a part of the problem to using a sharp razor when I'd gotten used to a dull one. I was once again pressing too hard. But yes stropping a whole heap did help smooth things out for the razor I was using and the second I honed that same day.

Well just about one month later and it was time to give my razor a bit of a touch-up. The razor was in better shape that the last time I honed so I decided to start on a Chinese 12K very lightly 100 passes. Perhaps this was overkill but I was sitting in front of the kitchen window and enjoying a cup of coffee. I had picked up some chromium oxide lapping film (about $2.50 per 8.5" x 11" sheet) so cut out a piece the same size as the 12K stone with a little water this stuck down to the stone very nicely. I lapped about 20 strokes on the chromium. After stropping about 100 laps each on linen and leather and being careful to lower my blade angle . . . I got a very very comfortable shave. If I only do this once a month the one piece of chromium oxide will last for years.