Why your earplugs keep falling out

They work when you go to bed and they are gone by morning. Here is what actually causes it, and how to tell whether it is the size, the shape or the material.

By the Vespré team Updated 3 min read
A Vespré earplug resting on white bedsheets in the morning

The short answer

Earplugs usually fall out for one of three reasons: the tip is too small, the tip is too large, or foam has fully expanded and lost its grip. Side sleeping makes all three worse, because the pillow works a protruding plug loose. A low shape in the right tip size fixes most cases.

You put them in. They feel fine. You wake up and one is in the sheets, one is on the floor, and you have no memory of removing either.

This is the single most common reason people give up on earplugs, and it is almost never the person's fault.

Three causes, and they need different fixes

The plug is too small

The obvious one, and the least common. A plug that is genuinely too small will not seal in the first place, so you notice at the start of the night rather than the end.

If sound was getting through before you fell asleep, this is your problem and the fix is a larger tip.

The plug is too large

Counter-intuitive and much more common.

A plug that is too big cannot seat properly. It sits proud of the canal instead of settling into it, held in place by pressure against the canal wall rather than by shape. That pressure is unstable: it works loose as you move, and the moment it loses grip there is nothing holding it.

If it felt tight when you put it in, it is too big. A correctly sized plug feels like nothing.

It expands, then has nothing left to hold with

This is foam specifically, and it is why foam has this problem worse than anything else.

Foam works by being compressed, inserted, then expanding to fill the canal. Once it has fully expanded, the expansion is over. There is no grip mechanism left, only friction against a surface that is warm and slightly damp.

Add eight hours of moving your head against a pillow and it migrates out. Foam is not badly made. It is being asked to do a job it was not designed for.

The pillow makes all three worse

Most earplugs protrude past the ear. Lie on your side and the pillow becomes a lever, working the plug out with every movement.

The plug does not fall out. It is pushed out, slowly, all night

That is why it happens on the side you sleep on and not the other. A plug that sits low in the ear gives the pillow less to push against, and a soft fin tucked into the fold of the ear, the way Wing is built, is there to hold it while you turn over.

How to work out which one you have

  • Sound got through before you sleptToo small. Size up.
  • It felt tight going inToo big. Size down.
  • It worked for an hour then stoppedFoam that has fully expanded. A different material will not do this.
  • It only happens on one sideThe pillow, and the plug is protruding. Shape problem, not size.
  • Your two ears need different sizesNormal, and more common than people expect. Nothing is wrong with you.

What to do about it

Start with the medium tip and adjust from what happens, rather than guessing from how it looks. And use a different size in each ear if that is what fits. That is what more than one size in the box is for.

Thirty nights to decide, and used returns are fine.

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