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Razor sharpening with jeans: Myth or Reality

For those who don't know, there's a theory in the "shaving enthusiast community" that running your razor up and down your denim jeans sharpens your razor blades, giving you the ability to shave with your razor for much longer. I've heard of guys using razors for months with Schick Hydro's and Gillette Fusions.

So for those of you who's tried it, is it true?
 
Stropping your straight razor..tiring but works fine...for disposables..I read you can't have any strips otherwise it will rub off on jeans
 
I tried it and it made the blades duller. It might work for some people, but it doesn't work for me.

hmm that's interesting, that's the first time I've heard that. I've never done it but I would think running your razor on jeans would almost be like shaving and make the razor duller.
 
I used to "strop" my Fusion cartridges on jeans canvas back when I was still using this abomination, and it about doubled the blades' life. I even got myself a piece of denim just for that task. It made the blades last longer, but the shave was utterly uncomfortable still. Tugging, irritation, ingrowns, the whole package (I disinfected the blades after stropping with some Octenidin). DE shaving changed that completely, and I'm popping in a fresh blade every three shaves or so, seems so much more hygienic.
 
Where's the microscope guy?! A while back someone put up pictures of some different DE blades in various stages of distress. I would love to see some "proof" that the jean thing works because there always seems to be people on both sides of this issue. I remember trying it for a while back in the 90s but I never noticed any increase in longevity of the blade or in the quality of the shaves so I stopped doing it.
 
I've been doing this for years (before my DE days) and it did make my blades last a little longer. I was a very cheap poor college student, and this made my blades last long enough that I wasn't buying a 4 pack every month.
 
Where's the microscope guy?! A while back someone put up pictures of some different DE blades in various stages of distress. I would love to see some "proof" that the jean thing works because there always seems to be people on both sides of this issue. I remember trying it for a while back in the 90s but I never noticed any increase in longevity of the blade or in the quality of the shaves so I stopped doing it.

+1 on this.

Of course, it wouldn't work if the blades were cryogenically frozen!
 
They sold lots of beveled stones to rub at a preset angle.

With jeans, I imagine you are probably ruining the edge because the angle is not maintained?

I would be scared of cutting myself, lol

I think blades are too cheap to worry about it :)
 
I've done SO much to make carts last longer (including this) and for whatever reason, it didn't seem like anything I did helped.

I did strop my straight against my jeans the first time I used it because I hadn't ordered a leather strop yet.
 
Hi everyone,

Just a few words here.

Sharpening is most certainly NOT the correct word to be used here. Simply put to sharpen steel or for that matter anything, the material being "sharpened" must be softer then the tool sharpening it. Example whetstone to sharpen steel blades. As one can rightly imagine you could not sharpen steel with silk it simply cannot work. Keep in mind that sharpening entails removal of material in this case some of the metal that usually has been "bent" out of alignment. So stropping simply "re-aligns" the tiny metal indentations thus making it feel "sharper" but in fact it's just better aligned. Sadly I have no micrograph slides to show the difference, I'll see if my brother can give me some.

So will stropping your "blades" with denim actually work?? Most likely not much but it probably could help align some of the bits of metal and thus provide a slightly better shave. Again keep in mind the areas that have been dinged and dented would require actual sharpening and no amount of stropping can fix that.

Cheers,

Dan
 
They sold lots of beveled stones to rub at a preset angle.

With jeans, I imagine you are probably ruining the edge because the angle is not maintained?

This is the key to the failure of the $$$ products sold that are supposed to "sharpen" carts.

Remember, with a straight, you are stropping it with the edge and the spine on the strop... somewhere around 15-18 degrees.
You are shaving at 20-30 degrees... 30 or more with a DE.
A cart will be comparable to a DE.

The housing that contains the blades determines the angle of the shave. You can't change it... either shaving... or stropping.

How long would a straight last between honings if it were stropped at 25 degrees? We call that "rolling the edge"
 
It's the same as palm-stropping - cleans up the edge, removes small dirt particles and imperfections, probably gives you a bit of benefit but no-where near what people claim. If you think it doubles your blade life, what you really mean is that you've learned to accept lousy shaves as normal.
 
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