Are you actually meant to cut toe cuticles, or not?

Push, do not cut. The cuticle is a seal between the nail and the skin, and it is there to keep bacteria out of the space underneath. Cut it and you have opened that seal. Soften them in warm water, push them back gently with a soft stick, and leave it there. What you can safely tidy is dead skin sitting loose on the nail plate itself, which is a different thing from the living cuticle at the base.

Agreed, and the reason it looks neater when it is cut is exactly the reason not to. You are removing the thing that was doing a job. It grows back thicker and more ragged too, so you end up committed to doing it forever.

Push. Never cut. There is not really a debate here.

There is a bit of one, actually. I have had mine trimmed by the same experienced person for years, carefully, only the loose overgrown edge, and I have never had a problem once. So I would say the honest version is that it is a skill, and the advice not to cut is aimed at people doing it themselves with clippers on a Sunday night. Which is most of us, so the advice is still right.

That is helpful, thank you. The person who told me to cut them was doing exactly that, carefully and professionally. My mistake was assuming I could copy it at home with a pair of nail scissors and no idea what I was doing.

Also, the reason they look overgrown is very often that they are dry. Oil at the base of each nail, most evenings, and within a couple of weeks there is much less to be tempted by. It sounds like a beauty-counter answer and it genuinely works.

One caution for the thread. If you have diabetes or any circulation or nerve problem in your feet, do not push, cut or tidy anything around a toenail yourself. That is a professional job every single time, because a tiny break in the skin down there is a much bigger deal than it looks.

went years cutting them because i thought that's what a pedicure was. stopped about eighteen months ago and the skin round my nails is calmer than it's ever been.