Polymer clay earrings have burst onto the jewelry scene the last three years. More than ever before, you can find people walking around with clay earrings on their ears, and for the uninitiated, the growing trend might be confusing. What makes polymer clay earrings unique?
Jewelry is personal. You wear what you wear because you feel it represents you, adds to your appearance, and showcases your personality without requiring a single word. Every medium of jewelry has something that makes it different. Polymer clay is no exception, and it’s the perfect fit for earrings. Let’s review why.
The Uniqueness of Polymer Clay Earrings
They’re Lightweight
First things first: polymer clay earrings are as light as it gets.
A few weeks ago I learned a valuable lesson about not wearing heavy earrings all the time. Going for surgery tomorrow morning to get my earlobe repaired. pic.twitter.com/s2BG9F7Fcc
— Twenty Eight (@Buddiction) September 30, 2022
Traditional earrings materials, like metal, plastic, and stone, can be quite heavy. When you put a pair of those earrings in your ears, gravity does its job. Their weight can be rather noticeable when you’re wearing them, but that’s not all - over the course of years, having your earlobes pulled closer and closer to the earth makes a difference. Traditional earrings are notorious culprits for causing saggy ears later in life.
Even resin earrings, which aren’t too heavy in the grand scheme, weigh more than polymer clay earrings. If something light is what you’re looking for - so light that you often don’t even remember you have them dangling from your ears - then you should consider polymer clay earrings.
The Possibilities Are Endless
Creative people make creative things, and that’s true for all mediums of jewelry, earrings included. But polymer clay offers artists a unique amount of creativity and possibilities for their creations.
You can make any design you can think of out of clay (assuming you have the skills, of course). Want earrings that look exactly like your cat? That can be done. Want translucent earrings? Those clay earrings are available. Want something totally wacky and zany? Go for it.
Custom Cat earrings for my Mom of her cat, Hermie.
If you can imagine it in your mind, it can probably be done with polymer clay. Outside of the skills to make it happen, creativity is a requirement for anyone aiming to create polymer clay earrings themselves. There is no limit to the direction a clay earrings design can take, and the medium opens artists and wearers up to more than metal or stone ever could.
Impossible to Replicate
If you buy a pair of handmade polymer clay earrings from a maker, no one else can ever possess the same exact pair. When an artist makes a batch of the same style, their goal is to make them as similar as possible, but it’s impossible to achieve the same result more than once. There will always be slight variations, and those slight variations inherently make that jewelry unique.
I have made multiple pairs of the same style of clay earrings many times before, but no two pairs have ever been identical. They never could be, especially if the earrings are decorated by a design within the clay, like sparkles or a collection of colors, rather than something I paint by hand.
Hand-painted Snow Globe earrings from the 2022 Cozy Christmas collection.
So, whenever you get a new pair of polymer clay earrings, you’re the only one in the world who has them. You will never see someone else out and about wearing the exact same pair as you, even if you do happen to come across someone wearing the same exact style as you. Quite frankly, it’s pretty tough to beat that level of uniqueness, and no other medium for earrings can.
Edited by Justin Meyer.