Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2021-05-22 08:22 pm
edenfalling) wrote2021-05-22 08:22 pm
Entry tags:
wherein Liz blathers a bit about earrings
I like earrings.
I don't think this is particularly a secret? I don't do much performative femininity (I have never worn makeup, I almost never wear dresses and very rarely wear skirts, my clothes tend to be relatively loose and plain, etc.), but pretty and/or cute earrings are the one kind of jewelry I have consistently worn since I was twelve years old.
Rings? I wore a couple regularly for a few years, but they're gross and painful in the summer when my fingers feel swollen and sweaty all the time. Necklaces? I have some I keep around for special occasions and/or for sentimental reasons, but they're hard to match to shirt necklines, they feel awful on the back of my neck when it's hot, and my boobs are big enough that long necklaces and large pendants don't hang correctly.
But earrings I can do. :)
I like dangle earrings (and some threader earrings) the best -- I want something large enough to catch the eye, and something that has a nice swing when I move. I also vastly prefer hooks to post-and-back style. Again, that's partly a texture thing (I cannot wear clip-ons at all, and post-and-back earrings sometimes get too close to that pinchy-pain feeling), and partly because I fidget with my earrings a lot, and it's easier to slide a hook back and forth through my piercing than to do anything similar with a post.
But I have a problem with earrings, and it is called metal sensitivity. :(
Anything with nickel is the devil incarnate, as far as my ears are concerned. I also often react badly to surgical steel -- yes, really! I don't care how hypoallergenic it's supposed to be! -- which can leave me in a bit of a pickle. I will buy a pair of earrings that are advertised as hypoallergenic... and presto, I stick them in and five hours later I have red, itchy, stinging, swollen earlobes. Ugh.
A couple years back, it occurred to me that I could possibly do something to fix this. "I know I don't react to silver or gold," I said to myself. "What if I bought some earring hooks made of sterling silver or gold and used those to replace the hooks on earrings I love but cannot wear more than one day a month without setting off a horrible reaction?"
So I did. And it was glorious!
The thing is, I have continued to perform surgery on new earrings as required, which has now led me to an interesting place where I am considering buying wire and learning how to make little extender loops so I can turn post-and-back earrings into hook-style earrings if it turns out I am allergic to the posts. Also, I have one pair of earrings where the maker did something weird to the hooks (which I am allergic to, let's add copper to the list of "metals I cannot stick in my ears," argh) and I will need to add a loop in order to make any of my replacement hooks interact correctly with the body of the earrings.
I have also started replacing hooks that I'm not allergic to but which are in a shape/style I dislike. Basically, with fishhook earring wires, you can have the long wire that sticks out the back of your piercing angle back, or angle down. Because of the way a lot of fishhook wire front sections are constructioned, it's slightly easier to shape a back-pointing hook than a down-pointing hook. They both keep earrings in your ears just fine, so what does it matter, right?
It matters because back-pointing hooks STAB ME LIKE A TINY ARMY OUT FOR MY BLOOD every time I try to use a phone while wearing them, and sometimes even just when I turn or tilt my head. THEY HURT.
So like I said, I've taken up replacing those as well.
The annoying thing is that while sterling silver fishhooks are fairly easy to come by in the shape and gauge I prefer (20 gauge, for reference -- I like a wire that can hold up a reasonable weight), it is damnably hard to find comparable hooks in gold. (Gold filled, that is. Gold plated can eat my entire ass... and then cause a horrible allergic reaction when the plating inevitably goes funny. *sigh*) It's also weirdly difficult to find niobium hooks that are treated to look like gold. You can get them to look like antique brass, but gold's a lot trickier -- unless you want to buy a batch of 200 hooks, which I 100% do NOT.
I'm still not interested in making my own earrings -- beading and polymer clay and metalwork and such are not my love and joy -- but I feel like I keep edging ever so slightly closer the more I tweak and alter other people's work.
For the record, here are the metals I know are safe for my ears: sterling silver, gold and/or gold-filled (14K or above), and niobium. I have had some luck with antique brass, but not so much that I feel comfortable declaring it universally safe. And that's it.
I don't think this is particularly a secret? I don't do much performative femininity (I have never worn makeup, I almost never wear dresses and very rarely wear skirts, my clothes tend to be relatively loose and plain, etc.), but pretty and/or cute earrings are the one kind of jewelry I have consistently worn since I was twelve years old.
Rings? I wore a couple regularly for a few years, but they're gross and painful in the summer when my fingers feel swollen and sweaty all the time. Necklaces? I have some I keep around for special occasions and/or for sentimental reasons, but they're hard to match to shirt necklines, they feel awful on the back of my neck when it's hot, and my boobs are big enough that long necklaces and large pendants don't hang correctly.
But earrings I can do. :)
I like dangle earrings (and some threader earrings) the best -- I want something large enough to catch the eye, and something that has a nice swing when I move. I also vastly prefer hooks to post-and-back style. Again, that's partly a texture thing (I cannot wear clip-ons at all, and post-and-back earrings sometimes get too close to that pinchy-pain feeling), and partly because I fidget with my earrings a lot, and it's easier to slide a hook back and forth through my piercing than to do anything similar with a post.
But I have a problem with earrings, and it is called metal sensitivity. :(
Anything with nickel is the devil incarnate, as far as my ears are concerned. I also often react badly to surgical steel -- yes, really! I don't care how hypoallergenic it's supposed to be! -- which can leave me in a bit of a pickle. I will buy a pair of earrings that are advertised as hypoallergenic... and presto, I stick them in and five hours later I have red, itchy, stinging, swollen earlobes. Ugh.
A couple years back, it occurred to me that I could possibly do something to fix this. "I know I don't react to silver or gold," I said to myself. "What if I bought some earring hooks made of sterling silver or gold and used those to replace the hooks on earrings I love but cannot wear more than one day a month without setting off a horrible reaction?"
So I did. And it was glorious!
The thing is, I have continued to perform surgery on new earrings as required, which has now led me to an interesting place where I am considering buying wire and learning how to make little extender loops so I can turn post-and-back earrings into hook-style earrings if it turns out I am allergic to the posts. Also, I have one pair of earrings where the maker did something weird to the hooks (which I am allergic to, let's add copper to the list of "metals I cannot stick in my ears," argh) and I will need to add a loop in order to make any of my replacement hooks interact correctly with the body of the earrings.
I have also started replacing hooks that I'm not allergic to but which are in a shape/style I dislike. Basically, with fishhook earring wires, you can have the long wire that sticks out the back of your piercing angle back, or angle down. Because of the way a lot of fishhook wire front sections are constructioned, it's slightly easier to shape a back-pointing hook than a down-pointing hook. They both keep earrings in your ears just fine, so what does it matter, right?
It matters because back-pointing hooks STAB ME LIKE A TINY ARMY OUT FOR MY BLOOD every time I try to use a phone while wearing them, and sometimes even just when I turn or tilt my head. THEY HURT.
So like I said, I've taken up replacing those as well.
The annoying thing is that while sterling silver fishhooks are fairly easy to come by in the shape and gauge I prefer (20 gauge, for reference -- I like a wire that can hold up a reasonable weight), it is damnably hard to find comparable hooks in gold. (Gold filled, that is. Gold plated can eat my entire ass... and then cause a horrible allergic reaction when the plating inevitably goes funny. *sigh*) It's also weirdly difficult to find niobium hooks that are treated to look like gold. You can get them to look like antique brass, but gold's a lot trickier -- unless you want to buy a batch of 200 hooks, which I 100% do NOT.
I'm still not interested in making my own earrings -- beading and polymer clay and metalwork and such are not my love and joy -- but I feel like I keep edging ever so slightly closer the more I tweak and alter other people's work.
For the record, here are the metals I know are safe for my ears: sterling silver, gold and/or gold-filled (14K or above), and niobium. I have had some luck with antique brass, but not so much that I feel comfortable declaring it universally safe. And that's it.