She can usually wear earrings in the shower, if the metal is a named, stable one. Water itself isn't the problem. What causes trouble is moisture trapped between metal and skin afterwards, shampoo and conditioner running down onto the lobe, and chlorine sitting on an alloy that isn't corrosion resistant. Drying the ears properly does most of the work. Our Polished Surgical Steel collection is chosen for exactly these conditions.
The three things that actually matter
What the metal is. A stable, corrosion-resistant metal handles water without much consequence. An alloy containing copper, or a coating over an unnamed base, doesn't.
What's dissolved in the water. Chlorine in pools, salt in the sea, minerals in hard water. All of them are harder on a reactive alloy than plain water.
What happens afterwards. This is the big one. Water left sitting in the piercing channel keeps skin damp for hours, and damp skin becomes irritated.
Wearing earrings in the shower
The water is fine. The products aren't.
Shampoo, conditioner, dry shampoo, hairspray and soap all run down over the ear, and some of that residue stays in the channel where nothing washes it out. It sits against the metal and against the skin.
The rule that solves it: jewelry on last, off first. Earrings go in after everything else, and they come out before anything else comes off.
If daily removal isn't practical, dry the lobes properly afterwards, front and back, and expect to clean the earrings weekly rather than occasionally.
Swimming pools
Chlorine is the reason to take them out for swimming if you're going to take them out for anything.
It's an aggressive oxidizer, and it attacks less stable alloys and coatings faster than plain water does. On a plated earring it accelerates the wear that eventually exposes the base metal. On sterling silver it drives tarnishing. On a well-specified steel it does very little, because that grade was chosen for resistance to exactly this.
If she swims regularly, the practical approach is to take them out for the pool where the setting allows it, and to rinse and dry the ears properly afterwards where it doesn't.
Rinsing matters as much as the removal. Chlorinated water evaporating from a lobe leaves concentrated residue behind.
The sea, and hot tubs
Salt water is corrosive to less stable metals, and it's also gritty in a way that abrades.
Hot tubs combine heat, chlorine and long contact time, which is the worst of all three. Warmth increases both perspiration and how quickly reactions run.
For either, the same answer: out if you can, thoroughly rinsed and dried if you can't.
Baths
Gentler than showers in one way, because there's less product running over the ear, and worse in another, because she's submerged for longer.
The thing to attend to is afterwards. Dry the lobes, front and back.
Why trapped moisture causes trouble
A piercing channel is enclosed and gets almost no airflow. Water that gets in doesn't run out or evaporate quickly, particularly with an earring blocking both ends.
Skin held damp for long stretches becomes irritated, and irritated skin produces more fluid, which dries into the crust parents notice. Damp skin also sheds more, which feeds the build-up on the post and the smell that comes with it.
Flat backs make this worse, because the disc creates a small cavity that holds moisture directly against the back of the lobe. It's one of the trade-offs nobody mentions when they're recommended for sleeping.
What to do, practically
Before: earrings in last, after hair products and sunscreen. Or out entirely for swimming.
After: dry the lobes front and back with a clean towel. A minute of attention prevents most of it.
Weekly: take them out, wash the earring and the lobe with warm water and mild soap, dry both, and give the channel an hour of air if you can.
Watch the post. If the front still looks gold but the post has gone a darker steel color, a coating has worn through and water is now reaching a base metal that was never described.
Does "waterproof" on a listing mean anything?
Not much, and it's worth knowing why.
Waterproof usually describes a coating's resistance to water, most often on PVD-finished pieces. It's a claim about the surface rather than about what's underneath, and every coating wears through eventually.
There's also no regulated definition of the word in jewelry, so it sits in the same category as "hypoallergenic" and "tarnish-resistant": a reassuring word without a standard behind it.
What actually predicts how a piece handles water is the base material and its corrosion resistance, which is a property you can look up if the grade is named.
What we make
purepixxi uses two materials, and both were chosen with continuous wear in mind.
S316L Surgical Steel, the same grade used in medical instruments and implants. The low carbon content and added molybdenum are what give it its resistance to corrosion and specifically to chlorides, which are present in perspiration and in pool water. On the Polished Surgical Steel range that's the entire earring, one material throughout, with no coating for water to work through.
24K Pure Gold, which is pure 24 karat gold finished onto a solid S316L Surgical Steel core with Aunix™ 24K, our engineered gold finish. Pure gold is chemically inert, so it doesn't react with chlorinated or salt water.
The setting, the post and the butterfly back all carry the same core. And we use butterfly backs rather than flat backs, which leaves the back of the lobe open rather than sealing moisture against it.
Independently tested by SGS to ASTM F2923 and CPSIA, with nickel release not detected under EN 1811. Report BTO 341803/1.
None of that means water can be ignored. Drying the lobes properly still matters, because the moisture problem is about her skin rather than about the metal. More in our safety FAQ.
Questions parents ask next
Will chlorine damage gold earrings? Pure gold is inert and unaffected. Low-karat gold contains alloy metals that chlorine attacks, which is why chlorine is a common cause of damage to 9K and 14K pieces.
Is the sea worse than a pool? Different rather than worse. Salt is corrosive to less stable alloys, and pools bring sustained chlorine exposure. Both call for rinsing and drying afterwards.
Should she take them out for swimming lessons every week? If the setting allows and she can manage it without losing them, yes. If not, rinsing and drying properly afterwards handles most of it.
What about a hot shower every day? Fine for a stable named metal. The products are the bigger issue, so jewelry on last, off first.
Her ears are always sore after swimming. Why? Most likely trapped moisture rather than the metal, particularly if it settles within a day. Dry them properly and see whether it changes.
The easiest pair to keep clean is the one with the fewest places for anything to gather, which is why we make the 4mm Ball Stud Earrings in Surgical Steel.
Related reading
- Why do her earrings keep falling out?
- How long can she keep the same earrings in?
- How do I clean my daughter's earrings?
- How to choose earrings for young ears
About the author. Matt Westmore is the founder of purepixxi. He came to children's jewelry from manufacturing and sourcing rather than marketing, which means he has walked the factory floors and knows what is actually inside a product rather than what a label says about it. purepixxi uses two materials only, names them exactly, and has them independently tested.
