The Big Risks of Wearing Earrings While You Sleep

This summer in New York, alongside the usual chorus of dermatologists and aestheticians extolling the virtues of broad-spectrum sunscreen, aesthetician Taylor Worden—one of the city’s most sought-after facialists—is quietly addressing something a bit more unexpected.

Inside her softly lit SoHo studio, where minimalist decor meets maximalist skin rejuvenation, Worden is known for her meticulous, tailor-made facials that attract beauty editors, celebrities and skin-care obsessives alike. But, while many arrive hoping to reclaim that elusive summer “glow,” Worden says there’s one surprisingly consistent concern emerging across her clientele: the ears. More specifically, aged earlobes.

“Humans should not sleep in their earrings because it ages their earlobes,” Worden stresses. “Your earlobes are delicate and fragile and can tell your age. Sleeping in  earrings—even small studs—damages your collagen and elastin in the earlobes.”

Worden’s best good-skin advice (besides simply taking them out): Apply a retinol to the lobes at night, and SPF during the day, both of which she does diligently. (She likes an Rx Tretinoin or Environ’s retinol serum [$96].) 

A scary reality to listen to (no pun intended): “When you have a piece of metal in your ear and the post is hitting the back of your ear for the next for eight hours, they start to sag and lose their elasticity,” she adds. “Not only should you take them out when you sleep, but they should also be cleaned often.”

Plus, Worden says, there is a sanitation factor at play. “When you wear your earrings day after day in all situations they start to smell and accumulate dirt. They can even create blackheads, and the back of the post creates a hole behind your ear. Wearing earrings to bed is like not taking off your makeup before you go to bed!”