Inside: Best earrings for sensitive ears…. because what’s in our earrings really does matter.

It’s pretty common to find yourself having a reaction to different earrings and different metals when trying out new pieces. Whether you’re new to piercings of any kind or you’ve had at least your ears pierced since you were ten, you’re still likely to find different reactions to different kinds of earrings.

It’s bound to happen at some point as you try new metals, all of our bodies aren’t fully accepting of every metal and every kind of substance.

It’s important to pay attention to your body and notice when it starts to tell you that something that you’re giving it is irritating it. When you notice irritation and certain sensitivities, your body isn’t naturally just going to get over it with time, it’s likely only going to get worse with more exposure.

Get ready to start replacing the earrings that have started causing issues in your ears and find something of a newer and cleaner metal to make your angry ears happy again.

What are the best earrings for sensitive ears

What Causes Irritation

What are some typical and common causes of irritation with sensitive ears? If you just simply have sensitive ears, they’re likely could be one hundred causes that aren’t super common, your skin just wants to reject it.

And I would understand, I have pretty sensitive skin and react to many different things.

However, when it comes to earrings and piercings, there are a few common factors to what we react to.

Mixed metals are the number one irritant in your jewelry. It’s not even necessarily that it’s cheap metals, but there’s one material in particular that is usually known to cause irritation to many people, with or without sensitive skin. And that’s nickel. Nickel is thrown into the mix of so many different metal mixes even without indication, and it often reacts with different people’s skin. Even if you don’t start out with a nickel allergy, it is common to develop one over time if you are too exposed to it. So if your starter earrings are nickel and you continue to wear them, you might just develop an allergy to it.

Copper is not as common of an ingredient or as common of an irritant, but you do need to be mindful of when it’s found in your jewelry, as it can definitely be a cause for irritation as well. It isn’t a hypoallergenic metal, so it’s not unheard of.

While there may be other factors like post styles and types that may irritate your ears, if sensitive ears are your problem, you’re going to need to pay the most attention to the metals and materials used in your earrings to solve your problem.

Different Hypoallergenic Metals

When dealing with sensitive ears, the best thing you can do is invest in some high quality metal earrings that aren’t going to irritate your skin. While it might be annoying and outside of your plan to have to pay for higher quality earrings, you’ve already paid for the piercing so far, don’t let it go to waste with cheap earrings that are going to hurt your ears further… Especially if you’re not going to wear anything in them at all.

For starters, start to look for pure metal earrings. The most common in the most affordable generally are sterling silver, and you won’t likely have any reaction to this. You do need to read the contents and make sure that it is completely sterling silver, not a mixed metal with mostly sterling silver.

Anything with mixed metals listed is likely going to have copper and/or nickel.

Extremely sensitive ears tend to only like gold metal earrings. There’s different levels of gold content, and the higher the gold content the more likely it is that there are no mixed metals involved.

You would think that reading labels and ingredient lists only matter when it comes to your food, but unfortunately, it matters with your earrings and jewelry, too. The most common hypoallergenic metal that rarely comes with mixed metal groups are titanium earrings. They definitely have a certain look to them, the metal looks like titanium for sure, but it is super hypoallergenic, and it will work great for sensitive ears.

Styles Of Earrings To Help

There technically aren’t any styles of earrings that tend to irritate years, but I’ve noticed patterns with certain styles of backs for my ears that cause irritation that I’ve had to stop wearing. The metals are going to be the bigger issue, but these styles of earrings may not be helping. If you notice any the same patterns, start to look for a different kind of closures and backings to your earrings, and see if it makes a difference!

Some of the styles that don’t work for me anymore are hoops with clasps and metal butterfly backs. Hoops with clasp closures tend to not be the best quality clasp, and it reaches down the post until it’s completely hugging my ear. While this feels secure, when it’s squeezing my ear around a piercing, it definitely starts to cause irritation and discomfort. I can wear them for a couple hours without issue, but after that I have to take them out, or my ears start to protest.

Metal butterfly backs are the most common back types, and also some of the most secure. But over the years, I’ve noticed that metal backs cause issues for me, so the rubber ones that often come with the butterfly backs are a better solution. This may be due more with the metals being double exposed in the post and the back, than the actual back itself, but either way the rubber ones have worked best for me and replacement.

Let’s check out some different metals and styles of earrings to help your sensitive ears.

Four sterling silver pairs of earrings

Sterling Silver

1. Puffed Heart Hoops
2. Standard Hoops
3. Tiny Hoops
4. Chain Huggies
5. Heart Flat Backs
6. Cowboy Boots
7. Bow Studs
8. Tiny Horseshoe
9. Knots
10. Bar Earrings

Solid gold earrings

Gold

11. Tiny Twists
12. Stud Claw
13. Diamond Stud
14. Tiny Horseshoe
15. Moon Earrings
16. Ball Stud
17. Huggie Hoops
18. Florals
19. Thin Gold Hoops
20. Chain Links

A pair of rainbow best earrings for sensitive ears titanium hoops

Titanium

21. Crystal
22. Huggie Hoops
23. Small Clip Earrings
24. Diamond Hoops
25. Celestial Crystal
26. Rainbow Titanium
27. Flat backs
28. Tiny Geometric
29. Trinity Cluster
30. Hearts

Best Earrings For Sensitive Ears

31. Pearls
32. Stunning Stones
33. Chunky
34. Threaders
35. Dagger
36. Open Heart
37. Wavy Chunky Hoops
38. Marquise Diamond
39. Diamond Stud Hoop

A girl wearing celestial themed silver earrings
Having sensitive ears and skin is not a super fun trait to have these days. It seems like with the way everything from cosmetics to jewelry is made it is so easy to react to that you either have to be invincible against cheap ingredients or you’re going to have to do a lot of work and research to figure out what it is that causes the irritation.

Generally speaking, there are only so many common irritants in your earrings, so it’s easy to narrow down. So hopefully this post has helped you solve your problem and you’ve found the perfect earrings for you that are going to stop the irritation reactions and you can go back to wearing earrings as normal.

Along these same lines, if you need to take a nap and don’t want to have to take out your earrings, these are some of the best earrings to sleep in. They’re a lot of the same earrings in this post, as hypoallergenic is the best to sleep in, but there are some good styles in there as well that would be comfortable as well. Enjoy!