The strangest thing about Q-tips
Years ago, my mother complained about a terrible earache. The pain was unbearable. And it wouldn't go away—for a week, she walked around with a debilitating ringing in her head.
Eventually, she recalled to me the other day,the discomfort led her to a doctor, who carefully pushed an otoscope into her ear. Within seconds, he pulled it out and looked her in the face.
"Have you been putting Q-tips in your ears?," he asked with a disapproving tone.
Like so many others, my mother had been using Q-tips to clean her ears. But in doing so she was also messing with a natural process. Her ear was hurting because she had an ear infection, and there's a decent chance her routinely using Q-tips had helped cause it.
"Promise me something," the doctor told her. "Promise me you'll never put another Q-tip inside of your ear."
Q-tips are one of the most perplexing things for sale in America. Plenty of consumer products are widely used in ways other than their core function—books for leveling tables, newspapers for keeping fires aflame, seltzer for removing stains, coffee tables for resting legs—but these cotton swabs are distinct. Q-tips are one of the only major consumer products, if not the only, whose main purpose is precisely the one the manufacturer explicitly warns against.
The little padded sticks have long been marketed as household staples, pitched for various kinds of beauty upkeep, arts and crafts, home-cleaning, and baby care. And, for years, they have carried an explicit caution—every box of Q-tips comes with this caveat: "do not insert inside the ear canal." But everyone—especially those who look into people's ears for a living—know that many, if not most, flat out ignore the warning.
"People come in with cotton swab-related problems all the time," said Dennis Fitzgerald, who is an otolaryngologist in Washington D.C.. "Any ear, nose, and throat doctor in the world will tell you they see these all the time."
"People say they only use them to put makeup on, but we know what else they're using them for," he added. "They're putting them inside their ears."
No one told us not to
While Q-tips were never sold for use deep inside the ear, it took around half a century for manufacturers to explicitly warn against it.
The versatile little household staple was the brainchild of a man named Leo Gerstenzang, who thought to wrap cotton tightly around a stick after watching his wife preen their young child. She was using a toothpick with a cotton ball on the end to carefully apply various things to the baby, a clever but easily improved trick.
In 1923, Gerstenzang introduced Baby Gays, the first sanitized cotton swabs. They were similar to those sold today, save for a few key differences. They were made of wood, instead of plastic or paper; they were single-, not double-sided; they were meant to be used for baby care, rather than everything under the sun; and, most importantly, they didn't discourage putting them inside of ears.
"Every mother will be glad to know about Q-tips Baby Gays (the Q stands for "quality"), sanitary boric tipped swabs for the eyes, nostrils, ears, gums, and many other uses," a 1927 print advertisement read.
In the years that followed, many things changed, including the name, which was shortened to just Q-tips; the material, which shifted to paper; and the marketing, which broadened to include all sorts of other household uses. But one thing didn't: the absence of a warning.
It wasn't until sometime in the 1970s that boxes began to caution against sticking the things inside of ears. A vintage box from shortly after the new labeling practices (available for purchase on Ebay) says "for adult ear care" on the front.
The twisted pleasure of cleaning your ears
The cigarette analogy is an apt one. We continue to twist Q-tips in ourears thanks to a simple truth: it feels great. Our ears are filled with sensitive nerve endings, which send signals to various other parts of our bodies. Tickling their insides triggers all sorts of visceral pleasure.
But there's more. Using Q-tips leads to what dermatologists refer to as the itch-scratch cycle, a self-perpetuating addiction of sorts. The more you use them, the more your ears itch; and the more your ears itch, the more you use them.
Fitzgerald, the otolaryngologist, said he appreciates the cigarette analogy, but insists there's nothing funny about the temptation to stick cotton swabs into your ears. At the heart of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding Fitzgerald believes manufacturers have helped propagate, even if unintentionally, by talking in advertisements about their use in ear cleaning.
"People have been led to think that it's normal to clean their ears—they think that ear wax is dirty, that it's gross or unnecessary," he said. "But that's not true at all."
Fitzgerald likens ear wax to tears, which help lubricate and protect our eyeballs. Wax, he says, does something similar for the ear canal, where the skin is thin and fragile and highly susceptible to infection.
"Your body produces it [ear wax] to protect the ear canal," said Fitzgerald. "What you're taking out is supposed to be in there. There's a natural migration that carries the wax out when left alone."
Even if our ears were meant to be cleaned, the truth is that Q-tips would still be a terrible thing to use, he says. The shape, size, and texture of cotton swabs is such that inserting them into your ears tends to push wax inwards, toward your ear drum, rather than woo it out.
"Pushing wax in, as Q-tips tend to do, can induce hearing loss," said Fitzgerald. "They can also be inserted too deeply and rupture the ear drum or damage the small middle ear bones, both of which happen more than you would think."
For this reason, the American Academy of Otolaryngology listed cotton swabs as an "inappropriate or harmful intervention," even when earwax needs to be forcibly removed from the ear, in its 2008 guidelines.
Years ago, my mother complained about a terrible earache. The pain was unbearable. And it wouldn't go away—for a week, she walked around with a debilitating ringing in her head.
Eventually, she recalled to me the other day,the discomfort led her to a doctor, who carefully pushed an otoscope into her ear. Within seconds, he pulled it out and looked her in the face.
"Have you been putting Q-tips in your ears?," he asked with a disapproving tone.
Like so many others, my mother had been using Q-tips to clean her ears. But in doing so she was also messing with a natural process. Her ear was hurting because she had an ear infection, and there's a decent chance her routinely using Q-tips had helped cause it.
"Promise me something," the doctor told her. "Promise me you'll never put another Q-tip inside of your ear."
Q-tips are one of the most perplexing things for sale in America. Plenty of consumer products are widely used in ways other than their core function—books for leveling tables, newspapers for keeping fires aflame, seltzer for removing stains, coffee tables for resting legs—but these cotton swabs are distinct. Q-tips are one of the only major consumer products, if not the only, whose main purpose is precisely the one the manufacturer explicitly warns against.
The little padded sticks have long been marketed as household staples, pitched for various kinds of beauty upkeep, arts and crafts, home-cleaning, and baby care. And, for years, they have carried an explicit caution—every box of Q-tips comes with this caveat: "do not insert inside the ear canal." But everyone—especially those who look into people's ears for a living—know that many, if not most, flat out ignore the warning.
"People come in with cotton swab-related problems all the time," said Dennis Fitzgerald, who is an otolaryngologist in Washington D.C.. "Any ear, nose, and throat doctor in the world will tell you they see these all the time."
"People say they only use them to put makeup on, but we know what else they're using them for," he added. "They're putting them inside their ears."
No one told us not to
While Q-tips were never sold for use deep inside the ear, it took around half a century for manufacturers to explicitly warn against it.
The versatile little household staple was the brainchild of a man named Leo Gerstenzang, who thought to wrap cotton tightly around a stick after watching his wife preen their young child. She was using a toothpick with a cotton ball on the end to carefully apply various things to the baby, a clever but easily improved trick.
In 1923, Gerstenzang introduced Baby Gays, the first sanitized cotton swabs. They were similar to those sold today, save for a few key differences. They were made of wood, instead of plastic or paper; they were single-, not double-sided; they were meant to be used for baby care, rather than everything under the sun; and, most importantly, they didn't discourage putting them inside of ears.
"Every mother will be glad to know about Q-tips Baby Gays (the Q stands for "quality"), sanitary boric tipped swabs for the eyes, nostrils, ears, gums, and many other uses," a 1927 print advertisement read.
In the years that followed, many things changed, including the name, which was shortened to just Q-tips; the material, which shifted to paper; and the marketing, which broadened to include all sorts of other household uses. But one thing didn't: the absence of a warning.
It wasn't until sometime in the 1970s that boxes began to caution against sticking the things inside of ears. A vintage box from shortly after the new labeling practices (available for purchase on Ebay) says "for adult ear care" on the front.
The twisted pleasure of cleaning your ears
The cigarette analogy is an apt one. We continue to twist Q-tips in ourears thanks to a simple truth: it feels great. Our ears are filled with sensitive nerve endings, which send signals to various other parts of our bodies. Tickling their insides triggers all sorts of visceral pleasure.
But there's more. Using Q-tips leads to what dermatologists refer to as the itch-scratch cycle, a self-perpetuating addiction of sorts. The more you use them, the more your ears itch; and the more your ears itch, the more you use them.
Fitzgerald, the otolaryngologist, said he appreciates the cigarette analogy, but insists there's nothing funny about the temptation to stick cotton swabs into your ears. At the heart of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding Fitzgerald believes manufacturers have helped propagate, even if unintentionally, by talking in advertisements about their use in ear cleaning.
"People have been led to think that it's normal to clean their ears—they think that ear wax is dirty, that it's gross or unnecessary," he said. "But that's not true at all."
Fitzgerald likens ear wax to tears, which help lubricate and protect our eyeballs. Wax, he says, does something similar for the ear canal, where the skin is thin and fragile and highly susceptible to infection.
"Your body produces it [ear wax] to protect the ear canal," said Fitzgerald. "What you're taking out is supposed to be in there. There's a natural migration that carries the wax out when left alone."
Even if our ears were meant to be cleaned, the truth is that Q-tips would still be a terrible thing to use, he says. The shape, size, and texture of cotton swabs is such that inserting them into your ears tends to push wax inwards, toward your ear drum, rather than woo it out.
"Pushing wax in, as Q-tips tend to do, can induce hearing loss," said Fitzgerald. "They can also be inserted too deeply and rupture the ear drum or damage the small middle ear bones, both of which happen more than you would think."
For this reason, the American Academy of Otolaryngology listed cotton swabs as an "inappropriate or harmful intervention," even when earwax needs to be forcibly removed from the ear, in its 2008 guidelines.
That's what I do to my dog's ears. What I look like doing that to myself.
