Earrings smell like cheese because the comparison is more literal than it sounds. Cheese ripens through bacteria breaking down fats and proteins, producing compounds including butyric acid and various sulfur compounds. The bacteria living on your skin break down sebum and dead skin cells in an earring hole and produce a similar family of compounds. Same chemistry, different setting. Our Polished Surgical Steel collection gives them less to work with.
Why earrings smell like cheese specifically
Most explanations stop at "it's bacteria", which is true and not very satisfying. The specific answer is more interesting.
In cheese, cultured bacteria break down milk fats and proteins over weeks. Among the products are short-chain fatty acids, notably butyric acid, along with sulfur-containing compounds. Those are a large part of what gives aged cheese its distinctive smell.
In an earring hole, the bacteria that live on everyone's skin break down sebum, which is an oil, and shed skin cells, which are protein. The same classes of compound come out the other end, including short-chain fatty acids.
So when someone says their earrings smell like cheese, they aren't reaching for a colorful description. They're identifying a real chemical similarity.
The reason it happens in an ear and not on the rest of your skin is enclosure. A piercing channel with an earring in both ends has almost no airflow, so material accumulates instead of drying and washing away.
Why this is normal
Worth saying clearly, because almost everyone who searches this assumes they're unusual.
It happens to adults and children. It happens to people who shower daily. It happens in piercings that are years old and entirely healthy. It has nothing to do with cleanliness, because ordinary washing doesn't reach inside a channel that's blocked at both ends.
It also isn't an infection. An infection announces itself with heat, spreading redness, swelling, discharge and pain. Smell on its own, from a settled piercing, is just chemistry.
What makes it stronger
Leaving the same pair in for months. The single biggest factor. Nothing gets cleaned while the earrings stay in.
A back that seals the lobe. Flat backs create a small cavity behind the disc that holds moisture and debris against the skin.
A rough or corroding surface. Debris clings to texture. A post that has tarnished, pitted, or worn through its plating holds more than a smooth one.
Long hair, which keeps the area warm and damp and carries product residue to it.
Heat, perspiration and humidity.
Hair products. Shampoo, conditioner and dry shampoo all run down onto the ear and into the channel.
How to get rid of it
Take the earrings out. Nothing else works until you do.
Wash both. Warm water and mild soap on the earring, gently on the lobe front and back, then dry properly.
Leave them out for an hour or two so the channel gets some air.
Do it weekly. Frequency matters more than intensity here.
Don't twist the earring in the hole. It abrades the channel and pushes material inward.
Don't reach for alcohol every time. Occasionally is fine. Regular antiseptic dries the skin lining the channel, and dry irritated skin sheds more, which feeds the process you're trying to stop.
Jewelry on last, off first. Hair products go on before the earrings.
When it's something else
Smell alone, from a settled piercing, with no pain, is ordinary.
Smell with heat, spreading redness, swelling, colored or persistent discharge, or worsening pain is a different situation. That's your pediatrician rather than an article.
The simplest test: ordinary build-up doesn't hurt.
Does the metal matter?
Some, though less than airflow and frequency do.
A corroding or tarnishing metal develops a rougher surface, and rough surfaces hold more. A plated earring is smooth while the coating lasts, and once it wears through, usually at the post first, the base metal underneath is exposed and often begins to corrode.
S316L Surgical Steel is used in medical instruments and implants partly because it resists corrosion, so it holds a smooth surface for years. Pure 24 karat gold is chemically inert and doesn't tarnish at all.
Neither stops the process, because the process is about skin. Both reduce how much clings on.
What we do
purepixxi uses two materials, and on one range only one.
S316L Surgical Steel, the same grade used in medical instruments and implants, chosen for corrosion resistance. On the Polished Surgical Steel range that's the whole earring, one material throughout, with no coating to wear 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. At 24 karat the gold has no alloy in it, so nothing in the finish tarnishes.
The setting, the post and the butterfly back all carry the same core. The post is the part inside the channel where all of this happens, and it's the component most commonly bought in from a different supplier and left out of any testing.
We use butterfly backs rather than flat backs, and this is one of the reasons: a butterfly leaves the back of the lobe open rather than sealing a cavity against it.
Independently tested by SGS to ASTM F2923 and CPSIA, with nickel release not detected under EN 1811. Report BTO 341803/1. More in our safety FAQ.
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.
Questions parents ask next
Is it dangerous? No. It's a build-up of ordinary skin material broken down by ordinary skin bacteria. It's unpleasant rather than harmful.
Why does it come back so fast after cleaning? Because the supply is continuous. Skin keeps shedding and producing oil, and the channel keeps being enclosed. Weekly cleaning manages it rather than ending it.
Do some people just not get it? Sebum production varies a lot between individuals, as does hair length and how often earrings come out. Plenty of people never notice it.
Will changing to a different back help? Possibly. A butterfly back leaves the lobe more open than a flat back, which holds moisture against it.
She's mortified about it. What do I tell her? That it happens to almost everyone with pierced ears, that it isn't about being clean, and that taking the earrings out weekly to wash both sorts it.
Related reading
- How do I stop her earrings from smelling?
- Why do earrings smell?
- Why does my earring hole smell?
- 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.
