How do I clean my daughter's earrings?

To clean kids earrings: warm water, mild soap, once a week, with them out. Here is the routine that works, and the mistakes that make it worse.

To clean kids earrings, take them out once a week and wash the earring and the lobe with warm water and a little mild soap, dry both properly, and put them back in clean and dry. That's the whole routine. Most of what goes wrong with children's earrings comes from doing more than that rather than less. Our safety FAQ covers the rest.

The routine for cleaning kids earrings

Wash your hands first.

Take the earrings out. Nothing you do while they're in reaches the piercing channel, because water runs over the outside of the lobe rather than through a hole that's blocked at both ends.

Wash the earring. Warm water and a little mild soap. Rub the post gently between finger and thumb, since that's where build-up collects. Rinse and dry thoroughly with a soft cloth.

Wash the lobe. Front and back, gently, with the same warm water and mild soap. Rinse and dry properly, including behind the ear.

Leave them out for an hour or two if the day allows, so the channel gets some airflow.

Put them back in clean and dry. Damp is what restarts the build-up cycle.

Once a week is right for a settled piercing. Frequency beats intensity here, because the supply of sebum and shed skin cells is continuous.

What not to do

Don't twist or rotate the earring in the hole. This is still widely recommended and it works against you. It abrades the lining of the channel and pushes debris further in, and irritated skin produces more fluid.

Don't use alcohol or antiseptic routinely. Occasionally is fine. Regularly, it dries the skin lining the channel, and dry irritated skin sheds more, which increases exactly what you're trying to remove.

Don't scrub. The lobe is soft tissue and the channel is delicate.

Don't use abrasive polish or a polishing cloth on plated earrings. Those are designed to remove a microscopic layer of metal, which is precisely what a plated piece can't spare. It brings the base metal to the surface faster than ordinary wear does.

Don't use ultrasonic cleaners or chemical dips on children's earrings without knowing what the piece is made of. They can loosen settings and attack alloys unpredictably.

Don't put a cotton bud in the hole. It pushes material inward and abrades the channel.

The habit that does more than cleaning

Jewelry on last, off first.

Shampoo, conditioner, dry shampoo, hairspray, sunscreen, perfume and lotion all end up on the lobe and in the channel. Applying them over the earrings puts that residue directly against the metal and the skin, where it sits.

So earrings go in after everything else is done, and they come out before anything else comes off.

This single change resolves more cases of build-up, tarnishing and irritation than any cleaning routine does, and it costs nothing.

After swimming and bathing

Water isn't the problem. Water left sitting between metal and skin is.

Dry the lobes properly afterwards, front and back. If she swims often, taking the earrings out first is worth the small hassle, particularly in chlorinated pools.

What you might find

Whiteish, slightly waxy build-up on the post. That's sebum and shed skin cells from inside the channel. Completely normal, produced by her body rather than collected from the environment, and it has nothing to do with how well she washes.

A smell. Same source. The bacteria that live on everyone's skin break down those oils and proteins, and some of the compounds produced smell strongly. Also normal, and also not a hygiene failure.

A little dried crust. Usually dried fluid from mildly irritated skin. Soften it with a warm damp cloth held against it for a minute, then wipe gently. Never pick at it dry.

Green or dark marks. That's the metal reacting, and cleaning is the wrong tool. It means the earring is releasing copper or shedding particles, and the fix is a different pair rather than a different routine.

Cleaning by material, briefly

Most of the questions parents send us are material-specific, so here is the short version for each. The routine above works for all of them. These are the differences worth knowing.

S316L Surgical Steel. Warm water and mild soap. It doesn't tarnish and it doesn't need polishing. Nothing else required.

Pure gold and high karat gold. Warm water and mild soap. Gold doesn't tarnish either. Dry with a soft cloth rather than a paper towel, which is more abrasive than it looks.

Lower karat gold, 9K to 14K. Same routine, and it may still dull, because the alloy in it tarnishes even though the gold doesn't. Polishing it back is treating the symptom.

Sterling silver. It tarnishes, and the usual advice is a silver polish or a dip. On an earring that goes into a piercing, be careful: polish residue in the channel is an irritant. If a pair needs chemical treatment to stay presentable, it's worth asking whether it belongs in a daily rotation.

Gold plated, vermeil and PVD-coated. Warm water and mild soap only. No polish, no abrasive cloth, no ultrasonic cleaner. Anything abrasive removes the coating, which is the part doing the work.

Costume and unnamed base metal. Wipe and dry. Don't soak, because water gets under the coating and corrodes what's beneath it. And treat a color change on the post as the end of that pair rather than a cleaning problem.

Butterfly backs. Whatever the material, rub the post and the inside of the butterfly gently between finger and thumb under the tap. That's where build-up collects, and it's the part most people rinse without touching.

When cleaning isn't the answer

Take her to your pediatrician if there's spreading redness, heat, swelling, colored or persistent discharge, worsening pain, a fever, or a back that has become embedded in the lobe.

Those aren't cleaning problems and no routine will fix them. An article can't tell you whether an ear is infected; someone who can look at it can.

Does the material change the routine?

Not the routine. It changes how much there's to clean.

Build-up clings to texture. A surface that stays smooth accumulates less than one that has corroded, tarnished or worn through.

A plated earring is smooth while the coating holds. Once it wears through, usually at the post first, the base metal underneath is exposed and often begins to corrode, roughening exactly the surface that sits inside the channel. That's when a pair that used to stay clean suddenly doesn't.

Check the post. If the front still looks gold but the post has gone a darker steel color, that's what has happened, and it's the point to stop wearing them rather than to clean them harder.

What we make

purepixxi uses two materials, and on one range only one.

S316L Surgical Steel, the same grade used in medical instruments and implants, chosen because it resists corrosion and holds a smooth surface. On the Polished Surgical Steel range that's the entire earring, one material throughout, so there's no coating to wear through and expose something rougher.

24K Pure Gold, which is pure 24 karat gold finished onto a solid S316L Surgical Steel core with Aunix™ 24K, our engineered gold finish. At 24 karat there's no alloy in the gold, so nothing in the finish tarnishes.

The setting, the post and the butterfly back all carry the same core. The post is the component inside the channel where build-up collects, and it's also the part most commonly bought in from a different supplier.

We use butterfly backs rather than flat backs, which leaves the back of the lobe open rather than sealing a cavity that holds moisture against it.

Independently tested by SGS to ASTM F2923 and CPSIA, with nickel release not detected under EN 1811. Report BTO 341803/1.

You can see the range on the Polished Surgical Steel collection.

Questions parents ask next

How often is too often? Daily washing of a settled piercing tends to dry and irritate it. Weekly, with the earrings out, is the sensible rhythm.

Should I use a piercing aftercare spray? Those are formulated for healing piercings rather than for maintaining settled ones. For a piercing that's been in for months, warm water and mild soap is enough.

Can I clean them without taking them out? You can wipe the outside, and it won't reach the channel or the post, which is where the build-up actually is.

What about silver dip or jewelry cleaner? Fine for solid pieces you understand. Risky on plated pieces and on settings, and unnecessary for a well-specified steel earring that isn't tarnishing in the first place.

She won't let me near her ears. Any tips? Do it after a bath when the skin is soft and warm, keep it under a minute, and let her do the washing of the earring itself while you handle the lobe.

The easiest pair to keep clean is the one with the fewest places for anything to gather, which is why we make the 5mm Star Stud Earrings in Surgical Steel.