Barrel or Post Pierced to Clip On Earring Converters are a popular way of making stud pierced earrings wearable by anyone! They have an important feature that might make you choose them over a no bend and that is that the earring will sit high up on the earlobe once converted from pierced to clip on.

With a no bend pierced to clip on converter, you don’t have to bend the post of the pierced earring at all however the earring will sit low beneath the earlobe. This looks perfectly acceptable for drop or dangle earrings and you may enjoy wearing these earrings as a clip on using a no bend pierced to clip on earring converter. However when it comes to stud earrings, we’re generally accustomed to seeing them around the middle of the earlobe so unless it’s a very large stud, the positioning of a no bend pierced to clip on earring converter my not be as aesthetically pleasing as a barrel pierced to clip on earring converter.

A pair of typical post pierced to clip on earring converter

Let’s look at how you convert a pierced earring to a clip on earring using a post pierced to clip on earring converter. Firstly there are some things you should note:

1. Post converters aren’t good at converting fish hook style pierced earrings. It can be done but you need to be quite crafty to straighten out the fish hook piercing sufficiently so unless you’re confident with a pair of plyers, stick to pierced earrings with a straight shaft
2. The thickness of the pierced shaft will vary according to who made the earrings. If the one you are trying to convert looks especially thick, first check to see it can enter the barrel of the converter. There are some that are too bulky to fit; not many, but it’s not unheard of. Secondly if it fits but looks like it might damage the converter, bend it with plyers outside of the barrel converter and then insert it

Here’s this as pictures:

Step 1: Insert the pierced earring into the clip on converter post

Step 2: Bend the earring post 90° so the stud faces correctly

Step 3: Converted earring ready to wear; repeat for other side

The whole process shouldn’t take long but do support the back of the earring as you convert it, bending gently and steadily rather than in quick jolts. Remember that any earring you convert in this way won’t be wearable as a pierced earring any more, however the bending will make the earring sit well in the converter without fear of it falling. The earring will then sit nicely on your earlobe looking gorgeous!

Make Me Beautiful stocks allergy safe post and no bend pierced to clip on earring converters.

There are several different types of clip on earring fastening and whilst all bar mini clips can be adjusted using a clip on earrings adjustment key, there is also a very easy way to make Shepard’s hook style clip on earrings more comfortable to wear.

Just for those of you thinking what the Shepard’s hook are you on about, Shepard’s hook clips are the type of clip on fastener that curves round. Standard paddles are flat or ever so slightly curved. Shepard’s hooks however loop over on themselves which makes them easier to adjust.

So easy to adjust you might even feel the need to go to the bathroom immediately and splash cold water on your face for not having thought of it yourself earlier… Yes, really!

Here’s the trick – simply squeeze the clip at the top of the moveable paddle so it’s not so wide. That’ll immediately make it have less pressure on your poor little lobes. Take a look, this photo says a thousand words – you can click it to see it bigger:

Loosening a Shepard's hook clip on earring

Just one pinch to end all your clip on earrings pinching. Now that was that easy? Then it’s cold water time!

Incidentally it works in reverse – if a Shepard’s hook is too loose just lift that flap up slightly to make it tighter.

I often get people ask me should I use a bend or a no bend clip on earring converter? For those of you new to this conversation, a clip on earring converter allows you to change a pierced earring into a clip on earring so that you do not have to have pierced ears to wear it.

Clip on earring converters are great however there are two types of pierced earring where you should think before you use them:

1. Fine jewellery earrings – if it’s your Grandma’s heirloom to you, the earrings your Mom wore on her wedding or an expensive gift from an amorous friend, converting fine jewellery – by that I mean expensive earrings made out of gold, silver, platinum, with real pearl or diamonds etc – is something best left to pros with jeweller’s studios. Take it to one and ask for a quote. You’ll never forgive yourself if you ruin it by your own hand.
2. Cheap jewellery earrings – it’s a sad fact that many supermarkets not only stock very cheap earrings, it’s cheap because it’s made out of cheap materials. Such earrings are often made from alloys, that’s combinations of different metals melted together. As a result the metal can be brittle and prone to snapping

If you are looking to convert either of these two types of pierced earring to a clip on earring then you should only use no bend clip on earring converters since these do not alter the pierced earring post in any way and can be removed at a later date if so desired.

The no bend style of clip on earring converter does a fantastic job for some styles of earring, notably hoops as these cannot be reasonably modified by bend clip on earring converters. However there are other styles like buttons, studs and shields that plain look odd if hung below the ear lobe. For these, you’ll need to use the bend type of pierced to clip on earring converter. These are sometimes called Clip On Earring Converter Posts since they have a vertical barrel you insert the pierced earring’s post into. Once inside and holding both the clip on earring converter and the pierced earring firmly so as to focus pressure on just the pierced earring’s post you then bend the earring so that it faces the right direction.

This process of bending the earring post has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side the earring will sit inside the converter nicely and you’ll be able to shake your head about without too much fear of launching an earring into someone nearby’s face! On the downside, your earring won’t be any good to pierced earring wearers so you may not want to convert any earrings you may want to sell at a later date.

Have you found that your clip on earrings pinch your ear lobes? Sometimes they pinch straight away, others seem to take a while before really beginning to nip by the end of the night.Why are they always so tight?

There’s a good reason for clip on earrings being so tight. It’s because clip on earrings are designed to fit anyone. Some women have very thin ear lobes and some women have very fleshy ones. In order for the same finding to work on the woman with a very slender earlobe, the woman with a fuller lobe will  find it a pinch! So what’s to be done?

Good news. Almost all clip on earrings are made with the ability to loosen them built in. It’s simply because most of the press cover pierced earrings that fewer women today know how to adjust their earrings. So how do you do it?

Most clip on earringgs have a movable part to the clip and a fixed part that has the actual earring on. Here’s a picture just so that you know what I mean by the moveable part of the clip on fastening and aren’t glazing over in confusion!

A clip on earring showing the moveable fastening

If you examine the moveable fastening part you’ll see that as well as the hinge that holds it on to the earring, there is a central tongue that rests upon the hinge. It’s this central tongue that determines the amount of tension in the clip on fastening.

So?

Simple. To loosen off the amount of tension all you need to do is lift the tongue so that it isn’t making the clip clamp shut. Here’s the trick – you need to do this gently. Take your time. It’s best to use a comfort key to loosen clip on earrings than just trying to force a butter knife underneath. You may have to lift the tongue gently several times, tetsing after each, before you get it right, however if you just yank the tongue up, you’ll make it too loose. So be ladylike when doing this!