Perhaps you have heard ear seeds mentioned in the same breath as famous names like Lisa, an actress and K-pop star, or Naomi Campbell, a supermodel.
Perhaps you have seen the seeds on the ears of TikTok influencers like Mireya Rios, who has more than 5 million followers.
Or maybe you have noticed them on people at recent installments of the U.S. Open or New York Fashion Week, two of many events where ear seeds — tiny objects gently pressed into different points on the ear — have lately appeared.
“I’m now being invited to ear seed at corporate events, wellness pop-ups and birthday parties,” said Kristen Williams, an acupuncturist and the founder of Capri Acupuncture in Denton, Texas. People to whom she has introduced ear seeds include professional football player Eric Kendricks, a linebacker with the San Francisco 49ers.
“I say to my teammates, ‘Hey, look at my ears right now,’ to show them how invested I am in taking care of my body,” Kendricks, 33, said in an interview.
A form of acupressure, a noninvasive version of acupuncture, ear seeds are adhesive and rooted in traditional Chinese medicine. Their proponents claim that they help to manage symptoms of anxiety, stress and addiction, among other ailments.
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The effectiveness of ear seeds is understudied. The limited research on them is focused mostly on their use treating symptoms of addiction, said Sandra Chiu, an acupuncturist and the founder of Lanshin in New York City’s Brooklyn borough. In traditional Chinese medicine, “every organ, limb and body region has a corresponding zone in the ear,” Chiu added.
Some proponents of ear seeds have also claimed that they have cosmetic benefits, including “face snatching,” or tightening the jawline. This has helped the seeds earn buzz anew as trends like “notox,” which favors natural alternatives to Botox, have taken off on social media.
Nicole Harkness, an acupuncturist and the founder of Haystack Acupuncture in Manhattan, said she typically offers ear seeds as a free add-on to other treatments. Other acupuncturists, she added, may charge as little as $5 to apply them.
These days, ear-seed applications are also available at places that don’t primarily focus on Chinese medicine. The Sisley Spa at the Dominick Hotel in New York offers them for $60 as an add-on to facial treatments, and Remedy Place, a “social wellness” club with locations in Manhattan, Boston and West Hollywood, California, offers them for $50.
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Traditionally, the black seeds of the Vaccaria plant have been used as ear seeds. Kamwo Meridian Herbs, a decades-old Chinese medicine dispensary in lower Manhattan, sells them in packs of 120 for $20.
Newer iterations are flashier. Some are heart-shaped and others can twinkle, like the Swarovski-crystal-studded versions included in Wthn’s 40-piece Crystal Ear Seed kit, which costs $45. The $90 V-Line Kit from byAva, which includes 120 neutral-tone seeds, is a favorite of influencers. The brand’s founder, Ava Lee, is one herself — she has some 1.7 million followers on TikTok, and her fans include cosmetics mogul Bobbi Brown and fashion influencer Aimee Song.
Ear seeds are adhesive and rooted in traditional Chinese medicine (Source: Instagram/@hii_magazine)
The proliferation of stylish ear seeds has coincided with that of other wearable wellness products — pimple patches, LED face masks, mouth tape — online and off. That some modern seeds look like earrings is part of the allure for fans like Salome Andrea, 33, an influencer in Salt Lake City. “It’s like piercings without the actual piercing,” as she put it.
With more people chatting about ear seeds on social media, some professionals have become skeptical of certain ways that they are being marketed. “To get a snatched face with ear seeding, or saying it will make you skinnier, feels to me like selling something that’s not real,” said Gudrun Wu Snyder, an acupuncturist and the founder of Moon Rabbit Acupuncture in Chicago.
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Chiu of Lanshin applies no more than five seeds to an ear at a time, she said, noting that she has seen videos of influencers wearing in excess of that. “That’s far too many at once,” she added. “It can make you feel worse, not better, if you don’t receive proper guidance.”
Felice Chan, an acupuncturist and the founder of Felice Acupuncture in Los Angeles, said that she has also noticed how ear seeds have become a stylish accessory, including for locals where she lives.
“In LA, something like cupping marks are a fashion statement,” she said. “Whenever you go to Erewhon,” she added, “you always get stopped and asked where you go for treatments.”
