John Martinez
***UPDATE... Here it is more than 2 months later and I have been wearing these without taking them out even once! The backs stay on great with no issues at all. Also, my horribly sensitive ears haven't had even a slight irritation from them. That's soo HUGE for me! Even better still, they still look like when I first purchased them even through all of my showering etc 😊 For these reasons I am changing my review from 3 to 4 stars. I still can't give them 5 stars because the posts are a bit too long for me, but I have read they fit others great, so that is just something that some of us will have an issue with. I will say though that it's only in my first set of piercings that they are too long in because my ears get just enough thicker moving up my ear lobes that the other earrings fit perfectly. I honestly would buy these again for my upper 3 sets of piercings. I feel like they are well worth the money that I paid for them.***Bear with me because this will probably be a lengthy review, but I will hopefully answer questions you probably have like I had... that's my intention anyways.First off, I am highly sensitive to most metals. The "nickle-free" were the type that I would always buy, but many of those would often make my ears sore for some reason. Being an 80's teen I have the usual 4 piercings in one ear and 3 in the other, so I definitely needed earrings that didn't make my ears hurt. I never found any that didn't make them sore, so for decades I didn't wear any earrings at all. One day I seen these and thought they would be perfect being stainless steel because I have other jewelry that's the same metal that I don't react to. I also loved the idea of having simple diamond like studs that graduated in size. The esthetics would be pleasing, but not over the top. After all, I hadn't worn earrings in probably 25-30 years and needed to get used to them again. Let me just say the stones in the smallest pair are barely any bigger than the circumference of the posts...they are TINY! And the largest pair are way too big for my taste. I ended up using the smallest 4 sets.I was really excited about having flat backs that screwed on, but I clearly didn't think this through! These backs are very small and the threading on the posts are obviously equally small. You have to be really agile in getting the backs on. I found it easiest to hold the back against the post and to screw the earring to the backs instead of trying to navigate turning the really tiny backs.Next is the length of the posts. I have pretty thick lobes but the posts are really long! They don't fall forward and hang funny in my ears, but they are definitely nowhere near snug like I prefer. If you have earlobes that are on the thin side I wouldn't reccomend these for you. Length aside, they are really comfortable!Next is the shine of the stones, metal, and overall condition of the earrings upon opening them. Sadly my stones don't have the sparkle that the listing shows, especially the small ones. This bothers me more than anything. I don't want to wear cheap looking studs ☹ The metal also looks quite dull as if they had been worn by someone for a while? Stainless steel is always shiny, even after extensive use! So I was sure to clean them with alcohol, but cleaning didn't even shine the stones or metal. As if that didn't bother me enough, they were shipped all together loosely in a small plastic bag that was packed in a slightly larger plastic bag and then put into a ridiculously large mailer that could have easily fit a few magazines in it. I see where others at least received a nice bag with them but that wasn't the case with mine. However, as a result of not being put onto a cardboard type piece, like you get in the stores when you buy earrings, a number of them were bent. Unfortunately it was next to impossible to straighten the really small ones.All things considered for the price vs the quantity of pairs that you get I don't feel horribly gypped out of my money, but I am super sad that the stones and metal doesn't sparkle or shine as shown in the listing. I need to wear them a while before I can honestly remark on whether they make my ears sore or not though. Sadly because of the degree of difficulty of putting the backs on I don't recommend them, especially if you suffer from arthritis or carpal tunnel like I do. I really wish I had thought the backs through more because I wouldn't have purchased this particular type. I recommend the type of backs that come with piercing studs that snap on and completely cover the ends of the posts. I will update this review if they do end up making my ears sore. The concept of these is great, but they missed the mark on too many factors for me to ever recommend them to friends or family ☹
