Since I use about three cotton swabs per day -- for things like cleaning my ears, doing my makeup and taking off nail polish -- this means I use over 1,000 cotton swabs in a year.

Q-tips, or cotton swabs, are safe to use outside your ear, but they should not be stuck inside your ear to clear out wax. We'll discuss why and what to do instead.

Cotton swab fibers, while appearing “nice and fuzzy,” she said, are “actually quite abrasive.” And that can cause your ear to produce more wax to protect the now-vulnerable skin.