The razor strop hung on a hook in the barbershop. The barber pulled the razor across the leather and the leather sharpened the blade and the blade shaved your face. The strop was the relationship between the tool and the craftsman. The barber maintained his own blade. The disposable razor maintains nothing. You use it and you throw it away and you buy another one. The strop was a commitment to the instrument. The cartridge is a subscription to the corporation.

My barber on Second Avenue stropped the razor twelve times before he touched your face. I counted. Twelve strokes on the leather. The sound was like a slow heartbeat. The strop was a ritual and the ritual was the quality control. The barber who rushed the strop cut the customer. The strop taught patience and the patience showed in the shave. You could tell a good barber by how long he spent on the strop before he spent any time on your face.

The straight razor was a piece of steel that lasted a lifetime. The barber's razor was his most important possession. He kept it in a leather case and he oiled it and he stropped it and the razor outlived the barber. The razor was passed down. The disposable razor is passed to the landfill. Eight billion disposable razors go to the landfill every year and the landfill is the place where convenience goes to die.

The barbershop on Second Avenue is still there. The barber uses an electric clipper now. The strop is gone. The straight razor is gone. The leather that sharpened the steel is hanging in a museum somewhere being called folk art. It was not folk art. It was infrastructure. The strop was the maintenance schedule of the face. The electric clipper has no maintenance schedule. When it stops working you replace it. The strop never stopped working because the strop was just leather and leather does not break. Leather wears. Wearing is not breaking. Wearing is evidence of use. Breaking is evidence of failure.

See also: Shoe Shine Stand, Milk Bottle