“A day doesn’t go by that I don’t see people come in with Q-tip-related injuries,” laments Jennifer Derebery, an inner-ear specialist in Los Angeles.
And yet there’s a scary warning on every box of Q-tips. It reads, “CAUTION: Do not enter ear canal. … Entering the ear canal could cause injury.” How is it that the one thing most people do with cotton swabs is also the thing manufacturers explicitly warn them not to do? It’s not just that people do damage to their ears, it’s that they keep doing damage.
Some even call it an addiction. On an online forum, Q-tip user associates ear swabbing with dependency: “How can I detox from my Q-tips addiction?” MADtv ran a classic sketch on a daughter having to hide Q-tip use from her parents like a junkie.
