Home ear wax removal kits and camera tools: are they safe?

Most home ear wax removal tools aren't worth the risk. Softening drops are the one home treatment with a clear role, and a soft rubber bulb syringe used after drops can be reasonable for some adults with healthy ears. Spiral tips, scoops and camera ear picks all put something inside the ear canal, and seeing the wax on your phone doesn't make it safe to dig it out. Ear candles and ear vacuums don't work.

Home ear wax tools compared

Search online for ear wax removal and you will find everything from olive oil sprays to camera-tipped scoops with their own phone app. Here is how the common ones stack up.

The pattern is simple. Anything that softens wax and lets the ear do the rest is low risk. Anything that goes into the canal to pull, twist or scrape wax out carries a real chance of making things worse.

Softening drops: the one home treatment with a clear role

If your ear feels blocked and you think it is wax, drops are where to start. The NHS suggests 2 or 3 drops of olive or almond oil, 3 to 4 times a day for 3 to 5 days, and a pharmacist can suggest alternatives such as sodium bicarbonate or urea hydrogen peroxide drops. Over the following couple of weeks the softened wax often works its way out by itself.

Getting drops to the wax takes a little technique, which our guide on how to use ear drops walks through. If you want to know how much to expect from them, read olive oil for ear wax: does it work?

Bulb syringes and home irrigation kits

Pharmacies sell packs that combine softening drops with a small rubber bulb syringe. After a few days of drops, you fill the bulb with water at body temperature and squeeze it gently into the ear to rinse out the softened wax. The pressure is low compared with the old metal syringes, and it only works on wax that is already soft.

Views differ among clinicians on how far to encourage this. It can be reasonable for adults with healthy ears, but it isn't suitable if you:

• have, or have ever had, a perforated eardrum
• have grommets, or have had any ear surgery
• have ear pain, discharge or a possible infection
• aren't sure what state your eardrum is in

If none of those apply and you want to try one, ask a pharmacist first, follow the pack instructions exactly, aim the water at the side of the canal rather than straight in, and stop straight away if it hurts or you feel dizzy.

Spiral tips, scoops and other tools that go inside the ear

These all share the same problem. The ear canal is about 2.5cm long and curves slightly, and the inner part is lined with skin so thin that it sits almost directly on bone. It grazes and bleeds easily, and it hurts when it does. Without magnification and a good light, you can't see how close you are to the eardrum or whether the tool is catching wax or pushing it.

Spiral twist tips are sold as a safer alternative to cotton buds, but they still go into the canal and still push some wax in front of them. Metal ear scoops have a long history, and in Japan ear cleaning with a scoop, known as mimikaki, is traditional. Carried out by a trained clinician who can see what they are doing, manual wax removal is a recognised method. On yourself, by feel, it is much riskier. Our guide to why cotton buds make ear wax worse explains how packed wax builds up.

Are camera ear cleaners safe?

Camera ear picks, often sold as smart ear cleaners, have a tiny camera and light at the tip of a scoop and show the inside of your ear on a phone. They look reassuring, because you can see the wax, and that is where the risk lies.

• Seeing isn't the same as control. The scoop at the end is still a scoop. A small slip, a sneeze or a nudge from someone else can push it into the canal wall or towards the eardrum.
• Depth is hard to judge. Wide-angle lenses on such small cameras make distances look different from reality, and a close-up of wax gives no sense of how far in you are.
• The picture is hard to read. Wax, dry skin and a dull eardrum can look alike, and the lens quickly smears once it touches wax.

Clinicians use video otoscopes too, but they are trained to read what they see, they hold the ear canal straight while they work and they don't use the camera to scrape. If you already own a camera pick, it is far safer to use it to take a quick look near the entrance of the ear than to remove anything.

Ear candles and ear vacuums

Ear candles, sometimes called Hopi candles, are hollow cones of wax-coated fabric lit at one end while the other rests in the ear. The residue left inside the candle afterwards is often shown as proof that wax was drawn out, but it is simply burnt candle material. The NHS says there is no evidence that ear candles get rid of ear wax. They do bring a risk of burns to the face, hair and ear, and of candle wax dripping into the ear canal.

Small battery-powered ear vacuums are a newer idea. The NHS says there is no evidence they work either. They are nothing like clinical microsuction, where a trained clinician uses a fine suction tube under magnification and can see exactly where it is in the ear.

When to stop and see someone

If 5 days of drops haven't cleared your ear, the NHS advises seeing a nurse at your GP surgery. Many surgeries no longer remove wax, so you may be pointed towards a community service or a private clinic, where it is usually done with microsuction or electronic irrigation in a single appointment. Our comparison of microsuction and ear irrigation explains the difference.

You can also browse ear wax removal clinics by town, or look up any unfamiliar terms in our ear care glossary.