wherein Liz blathers a bit about earrings

[edenfalling]

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.

Comments

[redwolf]

Niobium is awesome.

There's a bunch on Etsy, but they'll be getting them from a supplier, so try cut out the middle man. What on earth is it with all the bronze, brass and various antique finishes? You'd think silver or gold would be the default.

I haven't dealt with these guys, but Rings & Things have yellow 20ga Niobium hooks listed. https://www.rings-things.com/Products/Niobium-Ear-Wires-French-Hooks/Yellow-Niobium-Earring-Hook-Findings.html

How are you with Titanium? Rings & Things have Titanium hooks listed, but only 21ga in a raw colour. Titanium can be anodised to different colours, including gold. It gets used a lot in body piercing, but may work better at larger gauges.

https://www.reactivemetals.com/findings

Reactive metals looks interesting. Lots of Niobium, raw Titanium in the right size and also sterling silver and gold filled earring findings.

[edenfalling]

Oh god yeah, Etsy is not the place to buy raw components. Thank you for the links!

[musesfool]

Ooh, if you figure out how to change post-and-back earrings to hooks, I hope you post about it, because I have a couple of pairs that for some reason just won't stay in my ears even with the backs on and I'd like to still be able to wear them without the fear that they're just going to fall off randomly. Switching them to hooks might be the ticket if it's possible.

[krait]

I'm not edenfalling, of course, but I do make jewelry as a hobby; if you can post a photo of your earrings that won't stay, I can probably walk you through how to switch them! Though of course edenfalling is welcome to do it, too.

[edenfalling]

I am certainly interested! My current plans involve wire cutters, pliers, and possibly superglue, but I feel there is probably a less haphazard method.

[krait]

Sure! If you've got a photo of a pair like this, feel free to toss it my way, and I'll see what I can put together!

[musesfool]

These are the earrings that I'm mainly concerned about, but seeing edenfalling's comment below, they seem an unlikely candidate for the switch, since the post is attached to the setting of the top stone.

[krait]

edenfalling is right that it's more challenging when the post is part of the design, but there are some modifications you could try! It would depend on what the post was made of, and it might change the angle they hang at a bit, but it's sometimes possible to bend the post into a loop with jewelry pliers where a hook can be attached. (I did something similar with a pin back, once, to turn it into a pendant that could hang from a chain.)

Alternately, if you don't mind them becoming shorter, you could just detach the top portion with the post, and connect the small centre stone to a hook with its top loop.

Another possible option would be to make them slightly longer by looping a decorative bail through the very top 'bar' of the first piece, and attaching the hook to that. (In this case, cut off the post with wirecutters and file it smooth.)

[musesfool]

Oh cool. Thank you for a variety of potential options!

[krait]

You're welcome! I like challenges, and jewelrymaking gives plenty of those. :D

I'd try bending the post, first, both because it involves the least alteration of the earing's appearance, and because if the post is too brittle and snaps off, you can try one of the other options, instead.

[musesfool]

👍🏼

[edenfalling]

It depends a bit on how the body of the earring is connected to the post. If the post is just a metal ball or whatever, and there's a wire loop/ring between the body and the post section, you can often tweak that ring open, remove the post section, and hang the earring body from a hook loop instead. (I have done that.)

It gets trickier if the thing the post is attached to is actually part of the earring's structure/aesthetic whole, and you want to retain that segment. In that case, my working hypothesis (not yet tested) involves wire cutters, pliers, and possibly some superglue.

krait probably has better advice!

[musesfool]

See my comment above to krait - they are probably not feasible for the switch. Maybe I will try different backs instead.

[krait]

I will add that, if I'm understanding the description of the copper-hooked earrings in your post correctly, the hook is of a piece with the earring instead of a separate component?

If so, the post-bending trick would probably work on it, too! Bend the irritating hook into a loop and snip off the excess, then attach a tolerable hook. Or a jump ring and then hook, more likely, to keep the earring facing 'forward'.

[edenfalling]

No, it's weirder than that -- the person who made the earrings actually twisted the body of the hooks themselves 90 degrees, so the earrings hang correctly despite only having one jump ring. In other words, I would need to attach new hooks directly to the body of the earrings (would not hang right), or find/make a second ring to connect the existing ring to a new hook (thus changing the shape/length of the earring slightly, but producing a functional result). The problem is the who business is copper and I don't have any copper wire or jump rings at hand.

...

Wait a second.

...

Actually, strike that -- I have a FAIR AMOUNT of copper-ish wire at hand, just in inconveniently sized pieces. (Leftover cardboard box fasteners from live plant shipments, don't ask.) I also have no wire cutters and my pliers are not the right type to form rings.

I think I can fix both of those problems. :)

[krait]

Woohoo! Sounds like my kind of solution. :D