In this paper we present polishing, a novel technique to maximize the playback utility of a streamed layer-encoded video. Polishing reduces the amount of layer variations in a cached layer-encoded video before streaming it to a client if this increases the quality of the video. Polishing can also be used as a cache replacement strategy for removing the parts of layer-encoded videos on a cache that harm the quality least. This paper presents optimal algorithms for both applications and simulation results.