If you’re a jewelry lover or fond of wearing earrings, then earring backs are the most important component of your jewelry. Earring backs are as momentous as your shoes without socks and a car without keys. If it loses, the purpose of the earrings will lose.
It is also a stressful situation that happens often. I always get a very common question is, as jewelers. What is the best earring back for my earrings or studs? Will my backs be perfect for earrings? Answering all these questions is specific, depends on the structure and type of the earrings, and people’s preferences.
Lose your earring backings often? Do your ears produce a slippery substance on your earring backings? Do your earrings hang forward because of a tear in your ear? Check out this article for different earring backing options. In this article, you’ll find the most effective, popular, and best earrings back for diamond earrings.
If you lose your evening beckons all the time. If you notice that your ears produce a weird slimy substance on your backings, and if you notice that your earrings fall forward a lot, then this article is for you. So if you can relate to anything that I just mentioned, it could be because of the types of earring backs that you are wearing.
So if any of these apply, keep on reading, because I’m going to be talking about all the different types of earring backings out there, and which one may better suit you.
Traditional Butterfly Backing
The first backing is just your traditional butterfly backing for diamond earrings. They come in different various metal types, and they also come in different sizes. They’re smaller ones and larger ones. Keep in mind that gold and silver diamonds are not interchangeable, and this is because sterling silver typically has a thicker post than a gold post.
Bubble Backing Or Silicone Backing
The next type of backing is a bubble backing, also known as silicone backing. These are probably the most popular earring backings. I believe these are like the new universal earring backings. These have a butterfly backing inside the silicone, so that way it kind of backing makes it easier to support, but it still has the silicone to give you that comfort.
The reason why they started using the silicone backings is that people tend to put on their earring backing is too tight, so with your regular metal earring backings, like butterfly backings, people put them on too tight, and then the skin can grow around them, and then they get embedded in the ears.
So with the silicone earring back,that doesn’t happen, at least I have never seen a silicone earring back get embedded in someone’s ear now. I do know from selling these earring backings for many years that people have a love-hate relationship with these silicone backings. Well, people either love them or people hate them, hence, they tend to love them because they are more comfortable sleeping in with silicone backing.
You don’t have that metal right in the back of your ear, and in the back here now. So some people do say that they are more comfortable. Other people on the other hand find that they lose them very easily, and that is my case, so my ears produce weird oily substances.
Safety Backs Earrings
When I wear the diamond studs with bearing backings, and that oily substance makes the backings just slide off so much easier than a regular backing, like I can feel this backing right now, like how oily it is. They become very slippery, and I lose them all the time.
Plastic or silicone does tend to discolor after so many years. They do have a gold backing inside of them, so just keep that in mind, you can’t take the silicone off of these if it does not work, so the next time I vacuum. I’m going to be talking about is a safety back.
Safety backs you can buy separately, but they are traditionally sold on piercing diamond earrings, and the reason why is that if you pierced with a piercing gun, that actual earring is what pierces you. Therefore, the piercing earring is very sharp, and they put the rounded backing on there, so that way it doesn’t stick you in the back of your neck while you’re sleeping. These are also harder to come off, I mean they’re not impossible; you can still get them off.
These can also go on other earrings, and they just don’t lock as well as they do on pierced earrings. This is because piercing earrings tend to have a groove at the end, which helps them stay on pierced earrings. Now there are two reasons why you might want to put these on a regular earring. For one, if it’s a child, and she tends to lose her earrings, or number two is if you don’t want your earring backing right against your ear,
So, as I mentioned with silicone backings, my ears produce that weird oily substance, and it’s usually because that earring backing is right against my ear, can’t breathe when I wear hoops.
Safely backing stays on the edge of the earring, so this will also help if backings maybe make your ears. It’s a lot you won’t have an earring backing right against your ear. These are also usually pretty cheap. By the way, you can usually get a pack of them for maybe seven-eight dollars.
It depends on where you purchase them from. They do sell them on Amazon. The only thing with these is that they are typically plated, which means that the base metal is stainless steel or some type of metal, and then they are plated with either the goal to give them that gold color or white gold. It depends on the manufacturer.
Screw Backs
Screw backs and Protect backs are the two most common types of diamond earring backs. Screw backs you may be more familiar with. I’ll enlighten both of them just in case the screw backs operate like this, and you twist and twist and you keep twisting, and a couple more twists, and now your earring is free.
I can’t specifically say, but it’s just that way, they can make them stronger screw backs. These have a thread on the earrings, so that way they don’t come off as easily too common with diamond earrings and children’s earrings. The post on diamond earrings do tend to be thicker, and this is so it can hold the weight of the diamond, and also they don’t bend easier now because they are thicker.
You need a specific screw back, and these tend to be a little bit more expensive, like don’t be surprised if you pay more than $35 for this type of earring backing, especially if it’s in gold you do have to be careful making sure that you get the right one, because if you don’t, and the hole on the backing is too small, then you can strip and remove the threading off of the post, and then they won’t screw anymore.
So, be careful with that when you are getting diamond backings, and as far as children’s earrings, sometimes they just make regular butterfly back screws backs, and sometimes they have silicone on them, and they screw wrong. So just remember with this righty-tightly lefty-loosey that is how you remove them.
Comfort Backs or Discs Backs
Next, we have comfort backs or disc backings, and clutch backings. These are good if you have heavy diamond earrings or your earrings tend to fall forward a lot, these types of packings help because the disc is larger on the backing. So it can support a little bit of a heavier earring, or if you have like a slight tear in your ear, if you wore heavy earrings when younger, these backings will also be good for you.
If you have a big tear, it’s not going to help as much. Now some people take the disk off and just use the metal backing it, so I don’t like those types of backings because I have seen so many of them get embedded in people’s ears from them, putting them on so tight. But, disc earring backs for heavy earrings are also convenient for most people.
Safety Lock Closures
Safety lock closure is the best option for earrings that have long or heavy material, such as diamond hoop earrings. For some people, these earring backs are considered the best locking earring backs for diamond earrings,and conversely, it is a miserable condition to have earrings with squeeze lock earring backs.I will never forget one situation where I’ve seen a guy who had this earring embedded in his ear.
It was unpleasant to see, not only that it’ll putthis type of plastic backing on top of it, so that means they’ll have to backings on, and this your backing I have seen get stuck on so many earrings because I don’t know, I guess they like to melt it on, and then you have to cut them off because you don’t need to earring backings.
Clear Backings
By the way, those clear backings are meant for fishhooks earrings, a certain type of hoops, and small clear earrings. These clear backings are mostly used for making studs diamond earrings and hanging diamond earrings, so that way they don’t come off, and you don’t see the backing so easily. If you have diamonds and you want to make your earrings, then you can buy clear backings easily.
These are hypoallergenic earrings backs with stainless steel material. Clear backing also has a shining ear wire feature of a classic shape with a long hook that will stay locked and secure in your ear and rest comfortably. The front of the ear wire features flattened wire for a chic look. Along with the coil above, the simple loop also adds professional beauty.
Protector Backs
Protect your backs look like that, and they work like a kind of tie tack. I squeeze the triggers on the sides; you see that triggers on either side or now it’s free. You’re probably more familiar with the screws’ backs. They’re more common, I would say, but they do have some issues, one of which is, as you see me taking it off of the pad here, it takes forever to put on and off.
Another thing is that they have a tendency to unscrew while you’re not looking, and they do where the more you twist these up and down the threads, the more you’re wearing them down, and that makes it easy for them to slide off, then it becomes not a secure piece.
There’s no metal for the back to grip anymore. So what I would put on my favorite pair of diamond earrings would be to protect your backs. There are a lot easier to put on, as you see they work as a tie tack. You just pop them in and pop them out. They’re not going to go anywhere I can pull on this, and it’s not coming off unless I press the tabs. Hence, they can be considered as the replacement of screw backs for diamond earrings.
There’re two notches actually, so it’s doubly secure if, for some reason, you did push one of the tabs now to protect your backs. There’s a little bit more money upfront, but you don’t have to replace them. There’s a spring-loaded action, so the spring just presses on the post. You don’t have to, there’s no wear issue because the spring will just press a little harder.
One complaint that I guess we’ve had with the protector’s backs is that when you put your earrings on and it stops at the notch, you have said earrings. They’re a little droopy to those people. I would say that you’re not using your protective ax correctly.
Don’t stop at the notch. Keep squeezing them past the notch and push them up, just like you would a simple tension setting for your smaller earrings. That’s it for now I would use the protector back. I would recommend you do the same.
Lever Backs
Lever-back earrings can be a nice alternative to what you often see. Are these for fishhooks style ear wire? Correct! The lever backs have a good option in the closure because it has a spring-loaded lever. Therefore, the name lever back, which makes it so that your earrings are very secure.
Unlike the fishhook style, which is a very different look, if you wanted to be sure of security, you might need to add some of these little ear backs for the fishhook ear wires to make sure that you don’t lose your earrings.
But with these, once you put them in your ear, just this little hook part slides into the ear, and then you snap up the lever. Make sure that when you snap it up that it’s not to one side or the other, or it might be able to slip out. But make sure it’s fitted right over that hook, and then it’s very secure.
Generally, the loops on the lever back ear wires do open. You have to take a look. Often, there’s a split, like in this one you can see the split. And so you can open that to insert your earrings, if they’re ever closed, you may want to check that before you start a project on earrings, and just plan accordingly, that you’ll have to wrap something into the loop if they’re not open.
So, you can see, there are a few different shapes. There’s the more oval and the more round and a little less oval, the most of a teardrop shape. You can see they come in different colors, and there’s more beyond this. These are all stainless steel, and they’re colored in different colors.
They even come a little bit decorative, like these from House of Gems, which have a little flower design stamped on the front that adds to your jewelry design. Here’s a pair of earrings that were made with the lever back findings. As you can see, they’re a nice look. Even with a pair of very heavy dangly earrings, you can be certain that your earrings are very secure in the ears because of this closure on the back.
La Pousettes Backs
These are some different kinds of earring backs that you have read above. Another and the preeminent earring back for diamond studs are La Pousettes earring backings. At first glance these La Pousettes look a lot like a regular backing and post combination, but it also has a locking mechanism.
Just going to have to pinch it to release and then reattach them this way. Now it’s locked in place and you can pull it rarely hard. You can also pull as hard as you want and it’s not coming out no matter how hard you try. With these backs, you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues because they always come as a set. You are never going to have a post that doesn’t fit the backing. Then just solder the end like you would a normal post.