If you want to put a proper shine on the toe, and it’s a so-called cap toe model, most shine the entire cap all the way back to the toe seam. The problem is that in many cases the inner toe stiffener is shorter, and then the polish will break on the part that bends and it gets rather ugly.

 

It is in many ways completely logical and fully understandable that you make a spit shine all over the outer toe cap. It feels right. In some cases the inner toe stiffener, the one who gives the sturdiness to the toe, goes all the way back to the seam, and then it’s no problem. But when the cap is longer than the internal stiffener, that’s when the problems occur. Then you should only put on thicker layers of polish on the surface that is over the inner stiffener. Nothing complicated really, you just phase the polish of a bit towards the back of the cap.

Here’s an example of how it can look when you polish polish all over the outer toe cap, even though the inner stiffener is shorter. The polish cracks up and you get a really pronounced creasing. Image: StyleForum

With a smooth transition to the part of the cap that creases, it won’t look strange at all. What looks strange is if you spit shine all over the outer hood, even though it bends, then the polish cracks and it looks shoddy. On a non-cap toe shoe, people are automatically doing this the correct way, then the polish layer is placed just over the hard part, but the seam fools many to go too far back on cap toe models.

Vass is a manufacturer with short inner toe stiffeners (especially eastern European makers do it this way), and on these I have just put up a proper shine above the stiffener, not all the way back to the seam.