Why Do Float Centers use Child Sized Earplugs? – DSP 245

When shopping around for earplugs for float tanks, there’s only a few that actually work well in the float solution. One of these is the Mack’s wax earplugs, basically the standard for swimmers as well. But why do so many float centers buy the child sized ones when stocking their float center?

Ashkahn “Big Ears” Jahromi let’s all of us know what he thinks is going on and that many people may be using these earplugs incorrectly. Graham “Normal Ears” Talley, backs him up with some facts and important reminders.

The type of Mack’s Earplugs we use

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: All right.

Ashkahn: Hey, welcome everyone.

Graham: Hey there.

Ashkahn: How’s it going?

Graham: I’m doing great.

Ashkahn: Great.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Perfect.

Graham: My name is Graham.

Ashkahn: My name is Ashkahn. I’m also doing great.

Graham: And today’s question, which is also just great is, “What’s with all of these baby earplugs? Is everyone a bunch of babies?”

Ashkahn: Um, yeah.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Yeah, pretty much that’s the answer.

Graham: So I guess first of all, let’s first of all let’s talk about what babies are. So babies are the-

Ashkahn: When a man loves a woman

Graham: Of us, of humans.

Ashkahn: So, I’m assuming. I’m gonna make some assumptions here that they’re talking about specifically Mack’s silicone waterproof swimmer’s earplugs. So, for float centers, we don’t like the normal kind of foam ear plugs that you’d see for whatever concerts, construction sites, all those cheap disposable ones. They just don’t hold in your ears very well.

Graham: Yeah and they seem to let a little air bubbly stuff going through.

Ashkahn: It’s not what you want.

Graham: Yeah, they definitely don’t stop water from getting into the ears.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Even if they’re properly put in there.

Ashkahn: So, you really want something a little different for the kind of ideal float ear plug. There’s a couple different types, like some are, some look like tiny little Christmas trees.

Graham: Mm-hmm.

Ashkahn: Those kind of rubber Christmas tree ones. I found those to work decently in float tanks. They have some that are also kind of malleable like the Mack’s ear plugs ones are, but they’re made of wax.

Graham: Yeah, they have cotton plus wax ones that you can get.

Ashkahn: Yeah, cotton surrounds a thing and you kind of take that layer off and there’s this waxy cottony mixture underneath it. It’s the same kind of basic concept as the Mack’s silicone ones, which is that they’re kind of malleable and you use them to form a seal in your ears. And I just saw one on the Float Collective the other day that looked like a tiny little torpedo or something. So there’s a couple different types out there, but you’re really looking for something that is ideally meant to be in some kind of watery situation.

Graham: Yeah, and I’d say the Mack’s silicone ear plugs kind of like a cheap standard for not just float tanks, but any aquatics and aquatic events and things like that. You know, they are kind of a very much defacto for swimmers.

Ashkahn: Yep, so and they’re very popular in float centers. You see them all over.

Graham: Yeah, by a healthy margin. They’re probably the most common ear plugs to see at float centers.

Ashkahn: And what you see a lot at float centers is people using the children’s Mack’s ear plugs.

Graham: Yeah, the baby ones.

Ashkahn: Or the baby ones. As the person called them.

Graham: Because they’re a bunch of babies.

Ashkahn: So, Mack’s makes a smaller version of their ear plugs that they make for children or sometimes they hear of float centers that tell people just to take a single adult size ear plug and break it into two to basically accomplish the same goal.

Graham: And it’s basically as a one size fits all sort of product. I think that Mack’s just made sure that the single pair of regular adult size ear plugs could fit into humongous ears. That seems to be really the only solution that I can think of because they’re definitely too big just if I mold them into my big ears over there.

Ashkahn: They fit my ears pretty well. I like them. I can’t use the children’s ones because they’re

Graham: Because you have giant ears.

Ashkahn: I just don’t think that’s what’s going on! Here’s, hold on, let’s not even get into ear size conversations here cause I think there’s something else going on here.

Graham: That’s good then, I’ll let you go first. Bigger ears first as they say.

Ashkahn: That is a point though. They do fit, I need the bigger ones to fit into my ears, but here’s my real suspicion. My real suspicion is that more people need the bigger ones than you may think. Here’s what I think is happening out there. These Mack’s ear plugs, these silicone ear plugs, do not go in your ears the same way that other ear plugs do. When you get those foam ear plugs and things like that, or even the little Christmas tree ones, you’re sticking those in your ear canal and they’re making the seal in the ear canal. And so that’s people’s intuition, and I think if you’re trying to use the Mack’s ear plugs to do that same thing and get a seal in your ear canal, then the ones they provide to you are pretty large and they don’t work that well and it’s harder to get them to go in and make a good seal in your ear canal when you have so much to work with.

Graham: And it’s dangerous. Like you’re really not supposed to use them that way.

Ashkahn: Right, so that’s not how you’re supposed to use Mack’s ear plugs. In fact, if you look at the back of every single package, it specifically adds instructions on there that says, that just has a picture of an ear, and their ear plug going into the ear canal with a giant X over it.

Graham: It’s cause, yeah, you can tear them in half. It’s waxy, this material that can be sculpted so, unlike a regular ear plug which is all one piece, you can grab the end of it and pull it out. If you stick a bunch of this goop in your ear and you pull on it, it’s likely that you’re just gonna tear off a piece, rather than get the rest out and the remaining amount is gonna be stuck down there.

Ashkahn: And it’s happened.

Graham: In your ear canal.

Ashkahn: I’ve heard of it happening. I’ve heard of float centers saying that it just got stuck in their customer’s ear.

Graham: Yeah, which sounds awful.

Ashkahn: So, this may sound crazy to a lot of float centers out there, but I don’t think people should really have the children’s ear plugs provided to people. I don’t think it’s the proper, safe way to use the product. I think, when what we do, in our intro speech is specifically tell people how to use these ear plugs.

Graham: Yep, turn them into a pancake, make sure you get a seal around the edge of your ears there, make sure your ears are dry before you put them in. These are all kinda really important things too.

Ashkahn: Yeah, so instead of putting them in to your ear canal, you’re right outside your ear canal, that next layer of your ear. Your ear funnel or ear..

Graham: We’re not doctors.

Ashkahn: Your ear cave hole. That’s, so you push it around that area and you kinda of like, what I do at least personally, I wear ear plugs pretty much every float for some reason. I’m like the only person in Float On that seems to like them. There’s a couple other people out there.

Graham: Yeah, I mean you have this big ear canal, it’s probably uncomfortable if the water gets down in there.

Ashkahn: Yeah, it feels weird. It feels weird in there to me. And so I’ve gotten, it takes a little bit of training and you gotta figure out how to use it, but now I can do a pretty good job. I get a good seal in my ear pretty much every time I float now, I get a solid seal all the way around and I don’t get water going into my ear and it’s just because I’m doing that. I’m kind of flattening it out and pushing it to make that seal around my ear canal rather than pushing things into my ear. And so yeah, to be honest, it’s a little nerve wracking to me to see all these kind of children’s ear plug sizes around in different float centers cause it makes me feel like people are constantly putting them in their ears wrong. Cause if you try to use the children’s ones to put them in correctly, it’s not really enough.

Graham: See I haven’t found, like I’ve also floated and played around with them. So I don’t float with ear plugs, so I have way less experience than Ashkahn has, but I am curious about products and with the Mack’s regular ear plugs, they take up a bunch of space even just flattening them you know? And I can totally get a seal the proper way with the children’s ear plugs as well.

Ashkahn: Yeah?

Graham: And for me, at least, it feels actually more like a reasonable amount of material that’s going in there.

Ashkahn: Really?

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: I mean, I can make it work. Like I just floated a place the other day and I kinda squished it up right and everything like that,

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: But, it was harder for me. Like I had really like more strategically use the materials at my disposal to get it to work for me. Like it’s way easier for me with a little bit more stuff.

Graham: C’mon, how big are your ears compared to mine?

Ashkahn: This is not-

Graham: Just line them up.

Ashkahn: It’s not that I have big ears. I have a very normal size ear proportionate to my head, alright?

Graham: That doesn’t mean you don’t have big ears, my friend. They’re fine, they’re fine ears. Besides, you know what they say about people with big ears.

Ashkahn: They can hear really well.

Graham: Big podcast introductions, that’s right.

Ashkahn: So, I don’t know. Just re-examine that. Maybe it’s an ear size thing, but-

Graham: You don’t want to be ear-responsible.

Ashkahn: You do want to be ear responsible.

Graham: So test it out. Find your friend who has the biggest ears, send us a picture, preferably to scale, so we can compare them to ours.

Ashkahn: This is all I’m saying, don’t tell people to put these in their ear canals.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: If you find that the smaller ones work better for people, and it is, in fact, true that I have much larger ears than the rest of the human population, then so be it. But, just don’t have people sticking these in their ear canal.

Graham: No, it’s terrifying.

Ashkahn: It’s not how they’re supposed to work.

Graham: And it’s scary.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Mr. Mack personally will come down and chastise you if you do.

Graham: And then the reason, so we don’t offer the baby ear plugs over at Float On and pretty much, it’s because we’re not big babies. And we don’t want our customers to be either. No, it’s because, given all of this, ultimately even if I’m right and the baby ear plugs are a little bit more comfortable for a lot of the population, obviously, they’re still not ideal for some portion.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: And whereas you can tear bigger ear plugs down

Ashkahn: Right, right.

Graham: You can adjust their size. You can just rip off however much you need to, it’s harder to add on to the baby ear plug or you need to go specifically request another pair or you need to put two pairs in one, and then also explain to people that they can combine them if they need to to make a bigger, super ear plug. Like it all just sounds kind of ridiculous, so, at Float On, we just figured adjusting them down in size is the easier decision. And so, we offer the bigger size. Plus, we’re not a bunch of babies. Get the orange ones too.

Ashkahn: We mentioned this..

Graham: The bonus ear plus tip

Ashkahn: The come in different colors, one of which is clear and, while clear seems tempting at first, they can be really hard to spot in the float tank.

Graham: Or if they’re ground into your floor or if someone sticks them onto the ceiling or whatever it is.

Ashkahn: Bright orange is a really good decision. Super easy to spot.

Graham: Yeah, if one falls out of someone’s ear inside the tank water, and you’re just doing a little visual check of the tank between people, it’s so much easier to see those orange ear plugs floating in there. Especially the big ones. Yet another reason upgrade the size.

Ashkahn: I recommend the extra large Mack’s ear plugs.

Graham: Just find them more comfortable, I dunno why.

Ashkahn: Okay, that’s about enough for your ears out there, I think. If you guys have more questions for us, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast

Graham: Yeah, we’d love to ear them.

Ashkahn: Okay, alright, we gotta go. This has gone too far.

Graham: Bye everyone. See you next ear.

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