Earrings turn ears blue through the same process that turns them green, with a different compound at the end of it. Copper reacts with moisture and skin acids to form a range of compounds, and depending on what else is present they can appear green, blue-green, blue-gray or almost black. It's the same cause wearing a different color. Our materials page explains what we use instead.
Why her earrings turned her ears blue rather than green
Copper doesn't form one compound. It forms several, and which one you get depends on conditions.
The green everyone knows about comes from copper reacting with acids in perspiration. Add chlorides, which are also in perspiration and in swimming pools, and you get compounds that lean blue rather than green. Add sulfur compounds, present in some soaps, foods and air pollution, and the result trends darker still.
So blue-green, blue-gray and slate marks are all the same story as green: copper corroding at the point of contact. The variation is in the chemistry around it rather than in the earring.
Two other things produce blue-gray specifically.
Metal particles from abrasion. Soft metals shed microscopic particles against skin, and those particles look gray-blue in a thin film. Silver does this readily, and sterling silver more so because of the copper in it.
Reaction with cosmetics or products. Foundation, sunscreen, powder and some lotions contain fine mineral particles that act as gentle abrasives. Metal rubbing against skin coated with that residue sheds much faster, and the deposit often reads as gray or blue-gray rather than green.
Where the copper is
Low-karat gold. Karat measures purity. Picture the metal divided into 24 parts, and the karat is how many of those are gold. 9 karat is 9 parts gold and 15 parts other metal, and copper is almost always in that remainder.
Rose gold, always. The pink color is the copper.
Brass and unnamed base metals, which sit under a great deal of inexpensive plated jewelry. Brass is mostly copper.
Sterling silver. 925 means 92.5 percent silver, and the rest is usually copper.
Why it might have started suddenly
Two common explanations.
A coating has worn through. A plated earring keeps the base metal away from skin until the layer wears, and it wears first at the post and the back where friction concentrates. The front can still look perfect while the part inside her piercing is a different metal entirely. Check the post: if it has gone a darker steel color, that's your answer.
Something else in the routine changed. A new sunscreen, a different shampoo, a summer of swimming. All of these alter the chemistry sitting against the metal, and that can change both whether marks appear and what color they are.
Is it dangerous?
The mark itself isn't. It's a surface deposit and it washes off with soap and water.
What it indicates is worth taking seriously. Material is transferring from the earring into her skin, and the same thing is happening inside the piercing channel where the skin is thinner and more permeable than on the outside of the lobe.
Prolonged exposure to reactive metals is what leads to sensitivity over time. Nickel allergy affects around one in five people in North America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics reported in 2020 that nickel allergic contact dermatitis in children has nearly quadrupled over three decades, with at least 1.1 million children in the United States already sensitized. Sensitization builds cumulatively and is generally permanent.
If the ear is also hot, swollen, spreading with redness, discharging or increasingly painful, that's a different matter and one for your pediatrician rather than an article.
What to do
Wash it off and see how quickly it returns with the same pair.
Note which pair. Two or three entries usually reveal a pattern, and this is the single reason so few marks ever get traced to a specific product.
Jewelry on last, off first. Sunscreen, lotion, perfume, hairspray and soap all end up on the lobe and speed everything up.
Take them out for swimming, or dry the lobe properly afterwards. Chlorinated water pushes copper compounds toward the blue end of the range.
Check the post for a color change, which tells you whether a coating has gone.
Then look at what the next pair is made of. A named metal with a grade, including the post and the back.
What we do
purepixxi uses two materials, and neither has copper as a structural component.
S316L Surgical Steel, the same grade used in medical instruments and implants, chosen because it resists corrosion and doesn't readily shed. On the Polished Surgical Steel range that's the whole earring, one material throughout, with no coating to wear off.
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 no copper in the finish. It's a gold-plating process and we say so. The difference is what we plate and what we plate it onto.
We don't make rose gold, because the pink is the copper.
The setting, the post and the butterfly back all carry the same core. Independently tested by SGS across eight pairs covering all three components. Nickel release not detected under EN 1811. Tested to ASTM F2923 and CPSIA, with lead below a tenth of the United States legal limit. Report BTO 341803/1.
You can see the range on the Polished Surgical Steel collection.
The plainest way to rule this out is a pair with nothing plated over anything, which is what the 4mm Flawless Crystal Stud Earrings in Surgical Steel are.
Questions parents ask next
Is blue worse than green? No. Same underlying process, different compound at the end of it, driven by what else is present on the skin.
Could it be a dye from the earring? Very unlikely. Dyes and enamels sit on the surface and chip rather than transferring as a uniform film. A smooth deposit around the piercing is a reaction rather than a coating coming off.
She only gets it after swimming. Why? Chlorinated water adds chlorides, which push copper compounds toward blue, and it also leaves moisture sitting against the metal afterwards.
Will it happen with every pair she owns? Only the ones with accessible copper. That's why noting which pairs do it is worth the small effort.
Can it be prevented with a barrier? Only temporarily. Clear polish on posts chips within days, isn't intended for prolonged skin contact inside a piercing, and removes the visible signal that tells you what's going on.
Related reading
- Why do earrings turn ears green?
- How do I stop earrings from turning her ears green?
- What earrings won't turn her ears green?
- Why her ears react to earrings, and what to do about it
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.
