Thanks for the heads up. No doubt vacuuming is the loudest thing I do in my home, and I do notice that sensation you get in your ears when you listen to something loud you shouldn't be.

Yeah, I think most people who use these really rarely don't know about rolling them.

When we were cutting lots of metal in the theater shop one day we got a big bucket of them, and most people shoved them in unrolled and went.

They were, of course, the ones going "HEY, it's REALLY LOUD".

I never rolled mine that well though, always kind of just flattened. So good tip :D!

This is awesome and very helpful. I would always force them into my ear and that would just hurt!

:)

Ah the benefits of having worked at the airport when I was younger. :)

Really? Every single package of earplugs I've bought, regardless of brand, say right there on the package that you need to roll them before inserting them. Next up: a video on how to properly make glowsticks light up!

Safety first!

Five months of dealing with a colicky baby provided my wife and I with plenty of hands-on experience in ear plug insertion. We knew we'd inserted the ear plugs correctly when we could fall asleep.

Anyone have any tips on how to use wax earplugs? I try something similar by rolling it, but they always end up out of my ear come morning. I'm a little tired of hunting for them!

Is it not obvious to roll them? I use these things all the time when shooting, and the packages always made it clear that you had to roll them.

@youbastid: Absoulutely. The little blue and white cardboard pouches with the yellow ear plugs in them even had the picture of someone stretching their ear, a la elf style.

@yagisencho: 6 months with a snoring pregnant wife (twice) gave me the same level of earplug expertise.

I wear ear plugs every day on the commute to work (noisy subway). I can do the roll-stretch-insert one handed, so I can put both in simultaneously to enter my quiet place.

Another tip is that if you're having trouble rolling them, try cooling them down in the wind. This either increases or decreases their viscoelasticity (depending on how that term is used), and they will expand slower giving you more time to insert them.

Another another tip is if you still can't compress them into a tight roll, you've probably had them way too long and its time to throw them out.

Another another another tip is that lots of foam earplugs look alike, but they don't behave the same. You should try different brands to find one that suits you, and not assume that they'll behave similarly because they're the same shape.

@BobCoyote: Gross. How do you not occasionally swallow them?

I have Shure in-ear headphones and the tips I like use pretty much the same material. I've found that with the hard plastic channel in the center of them they're a little hard to roll properly so I've learned to wet them slightly on the outside and they slide right in.

@youbastid: As long as it doesn't involve X, I'll try it.

I hate those things. Ugh. The feeling of the expansion in your head is just...WRONG. I prefer to use another type.

@youbastid: And condoms!

I originally used a pair of "ear muffs" I bought from Home Depot w/a pair of head phones stuck in them, so I was muffling the sound, and also not getting bored. I bought a cheap Hard Hat from Grainger when I was cutting down tree branches in my yard, and couldn't use the ear muffs I had, so I bought a pair of flip down muffs that clip into my hard hat. Since about the age of 18, I wear sunglasses whenever I go out and wear ear protection whenever I am riding my mower in my paddocks, using the brush whacker, pushing a mower, etc... At 31

@OGH!_GitEmSteveDave: Damn enter key. As I was saying, at 31 tomorrow, my eyesight has slipped to 20/20 from 20/16 and my hearing is still damn good. I firmly believe a ounce of prevention is worth a lb of cure.

@baristabrawl: I imagine they don't put them in their mouth. Zing!

Been doing this for so long at the gun range it was hard for me to imagine people didn't know what to do.

A PSA is always good, but I also tend to think that this is a non-issue, as it is clearly printed on the ear plugs. But that's just me.

What is an issue is getting people to use ear plugs. I love it when people tell me at concerts that they don't wear ear plugs because they want to hear the music, and I respond, "I want to hear the music tonight and 10 years from now."

I have significantly less hearing loss compared to others my age, despite working in audio, because I use ear plugs and use common sense when it comes to headphone use and choice.

Is hearing hygiene taught in health classes these days?

Is it just me or did anyone else think they were watching a clip from the Onion?

@OGH!_GitEmSteveDave: I think we'd all appreciate a picture with you wearing the hard hat, ear muffs and sunglasses. I'm thinking modern day Unabomber.

I find that the silicone earplugs that form a seal work much better than the foam cones.

@Nathan Miller: Apparently there's people that don't know how to read a package and need a video to explain it to them.

@youbastid: True, but a lot of times, like in my old lab at school, there's just a bid ol' bin of them with no instructions or labels on it.

WHAT!?

Thanks for the tip. I've been shoving them up my nose all these years. One critical part they left out, though, is how to get them out of the packaging.

@DeadWriter: I actually find the music sounds better at concerts with earplugs in. They cut way down on the high frequencies, which are the harsher ones that tend to bounce around the venue and muddle the mix.

I have flown space A on many military aircraft and they show you how to insert the earplugs properly before every flight. Never occurred to me that someone might not know to roll them up.

I laughed so hard my earplugs shot out of my nose.

@Newman!!!!: Some of the bulk containers aren't labeled with this info. Our resident bin is not, although there's a little poster nearby.

@DeadWriter: When I went to concerts I always just put them in halfway, but I was doing that on purpose so that it didn't muffle all of the sound. The concerts I went to also were not that loud, but loud enough to require a bit of protection. When I put them in halfway the sound was perfect and I could adjust how loud the volume was to me by either pushing the plugs in a little or pulling them out.

@OGH!_GitEmSteveDave: I was under the impression that the lower the second number was, the better.

@Getem Homerjay!: wait - she only snored for 6 of the months she was pregnant? or she delivered prematurely both times?

I had NO IDEA how to do this. I've never used these things in my life.

When I was a kid, I used to lie in between my stereo speakers on the floor and listen to my records very loudly, so I'm surprised I have any hearing left at all.

Hey, I wouldn't have known. I bought a pack for travel when I had to stay in a college dorm; I didn't have to use them, but if I had, I suspect I would have staggered blearily into the bathroom and just desperately crammed them in. So now I know.

@catastrophegirl - manic first time home buyer: Considering I don't personally know Homerjay or his wife this is only supposition but I'm guessing the snoring was in some way caused by the increase in abdominal mass or "baby" and the first three months of the pregnancy didn't involve as much swelling as the final six.

@OMG! Con Seannery!: It is. He slipped TO 20/20, from the previous (better) 20/16.

@ColoradoShark: Ask and you shall receive.

what? I thought it was take 2 with water....*glug*

@Nathan Miller: Big dispensers/packages (you know, like the one in the picture) don't have instructions.

And some people only use them once or twice. /shrug.

@dadelus: I snore more when I sleep on my back, so maybe Mrs. Homerjay had to sleep on hers when her belly got big enough and that's what made her snore.
It feels kind of creepy to speculate on why someone else's wife is snoring.

@dadelus: "baby" made me laugh.

@youbastid: Yeah, I have just always known to roll them. Of course, my mom used to take my sister and I to airshows as kids and she's uber-health-and-safety mom, so I guess we just learned young.

@supercereal: You would put earplugs in that had been sitting in a communal bin? Yuck, I know ears aren't a big perpetrator of communicable diseases but I wouldn't want someone's earwax plugging up my ear...

Forget about ear plugs. These things[1] are awesome. They are comfortable and do an excellent job of killing sound.

[1] -- [tinyurl.com]

@SybilDisobedience:
Yeah, the swelling forcing Mrs. HomerJay (Marge!?) to make the switch to sleeping on her back was kinda the point I was getting at.

And yes, I hope neither Homer or Marge takes umbridge at my tongue in cheek suppositions of their bedroom activties. I mean no disrespect, simply trying to clarify why the first three months of the pregnancies might be snore free.

@gstein: I guess I could have said little Bart and Lisa but that might be seen as taking a theme too far. :)

@DeadWriter: Suddenly I'm glad I'm cheap- at the two concerts I've been to (one was ages ago while another one was two years ago for L'Arc En Ciel and cost me some US$25) I wasn't close enough to the stage to necessitate earplugs. That or the sound system was unusually quiet and I'm only making myself unprepared for the aural assault that is an American concert.