We brush our teeth daily, and we protect our skin when we go out in the sun, but how should we take care of our ears?

In any case, do not use a Q-tip to remove the excess earwax from your ear canal. 

Using a Q-tip only pushes the earwax further into the ear, potentially clogging it. The wax can even get stuck to the eardrum, preventing it from vibrating properly and reducing your hearing.

Plastic Q-tips are also harmful to our environment, as this picture of a seahorse clinging to a pink Q-tip shows us.

If you have too much earwax, we advise making an appointment with an ENT doctor (Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor).

They will give you an ear shower with a microscope, this is the safest way to have your ears cleaned. The air pressure cleaning method that your personal doctor uses is not recommended because it puts too much pressure on your eardrums. Ask your doctor for a referral to see an ENT specialist, so your ears can be cleaned safely and properly. In the meantime, you can gently remove excess earwax with your pinky finger. However, keep in mind that a small amount of earwax is actually a good thing. It protects your ear from water, bacteria, dust, and dirt.

More stories

View all

The history of hearing protection for musicians (part 3 of 3): TU Delft, Loop, and where aarproof.comes from

In the first two parts of this series we saw how hearing protection for musicians grew out of a combination of personal missions, from Andy Shiach to Eckhard Beste, and technical university work, with TU Delft and Tympanitec/Tympro as early...

Read more

The history of hearing protection for musicians (part 2 of 3): the Dutch and university roots

The first part of this series was about the international pioneers: Andy Shiach, Robert Beiny, Michael Santucci, Lisa Tannenbaum, Mead Killion and Marshall Chasin in England, America and Canada, and Eckhard Beste in Germany. But a lot happened in the...

Read more

The history of hearing protection for musicians (part 1 of 3): the international pioneers

Hearing protection for musicians did not happen by chance. It was built by a small number of people who, often after damaging their own hearing, decided to do something about it. In this series of three blogs we take you...

Read more