Understanding ear wax
Ear wax colours and textures: what is normal?
Yellow, brown, grey or flaky? What different ear wax colours and textures usually mean, with a colour chart and the changes worth showing a clinician.
In short
- Most ear wax colours are normal. Fresh wax tends to be pale yellow or honey-coloured and turns brown, or nearly black, as it ages.
- Grey or beige flaky wax is the dry type, which is inherited. It is just as healthy as the sticky kind.
- Hard, dark wax is usually old wax that has sat in the canal for a while, and it is the kind most likely to cause a blockage.
- Green or runny yellow discharge, blood, a strong smell or pain point to an infection or injury rather than ordinary wax.
- Get urgent help for sudden hearing loss, a hot, swollen, painful ear, or clear fluid or blood from the ear after a head injury.
Almost every colour of ear wax is normal. Fresh wax is usually pale yellow or honey-coloured and slowly darkens to brown as it ages, while people who make the dry type see grey or beige flakes instead. The colours worth taking seriously are red, green, or a runny yellow discharge that smells, particularly if your ear also hurts or your hearing has changed.
What colour should ear wax be?
There is no single healthy shade. Two things decide the colour you see: the type of wax you make, and how long it has been in your ear.
Type is set by your genes. Most people of European and African descent make wet wax, which is sticky and ranges from yellow to brown. Many people of East Asian descent make dry wax, which is grey, pale and flaky. Our guide to what ear wax is and why it builds up explains where the difference comes from.
Age does the rest. Wax is made in the outer part of the ear canal and is carried slowly outwards by the skin, picking up dead skin cells and dust on the way. The longer it stays, the drier and darker it gets. So the same person can have soft, light wax near the entrance and a firm brown plug further in, and both are perfectly normal.
Ear wax colour chart: what each shade usually means
Treat this as a rough guide, not a diagnosis. Colour rarely tells the whole story on its own, so pay as much attention to how your ear feels.
| What it usually means | What to do | |
|---|---|---|
| Pale yellow or honey | Fresh, soft wet wax, the kind most people see at the entrance of the ear | Nothing |
| Golden or orange-brown | Wax that has been in the canal for a while | Nothing |
| Dark brown or nearly black | Old, dried wax. Usually harmless, but a dark, hard plug is the kind that blocks an ear. Now and then the dark flecks are dried blood from an old scratch | Soften it with drops if your ear feels blocked |
| Grey or beige flakes | Dry-type wax, sometimes mixed with dust | Nothing |
| White fluff or black specks | Can be a fungal infection of the ear canal, especially if the ear is very itchy | See a pharmacist or GP |
| Green, or runny and yellow | Usually pus from an infection, particularly if it smells or the ear hurts | See a pharmacist or GP |
| Red or streaked with blood | Most often a small scratch from a cotton bud or fingernail. Less often an infection or a burst eardrum | Get it looked at if it keeps happening, or comes with pain or hearing loss |
| Clear and watery | Often just water or sweat after a shower or exercise | Go to A&E if it follows a head injury |
Wet, sticky, dry or hard: what the texture tells you
Texture follows the same pattern as colour. Sticky wax is the wet type and flaky wax is the dry type, and neither needs treating for its own sake.
Hard wax is a different matter. Wax firms up the longer it stays in the ear and tends to get drier with age, which is why older adults often find it sets almost like a small stone. Wax that has been pushed inwards by a cotton bud, hearing aid or earplug packs down and hardens too. Once a plug fills the canal it can stop sound getting through, and that is what clinicians mean by impacted ear wax.
Runny wax is common in warm weather, after exercise and in people whose wax is naturally soft. It is also what you should expect a few days into using olive oil, as the oil loosens an old plug and it starts to work its way out. What isn't normal is a steady trickle of something that isn't wax at all. Watery, cloudy or pus-like fluid, especially with a smell, usually means an infection.
Hard wax needs softening, not digging
Don't try to pick out a hard plug with anything. The NHS suggests 2 to 3 drops of medical grade olive or almond oil, 3 to 4 times a day for 3 to 5 days, which is often enough to loosen it. Our guide on how to use ear drops covers the technique. Skip the drops if your eardrum may be perforated, and avoid almond oil if you are allergic to almonds.
Why does my ear wax smell?
Ear wax has a mild smell of its own. You may notice it more on an earbud or a hearing aid dome that has been in all day, and that is normal.
A strong, unpleasant smell is another thing, particularly when there is discharge. The usual cause is an outer ear infection (otitis externa), where the skin of the canal becomes inflamed, sore and itchy. It often follows swimming, or flares up in people with eczema. Other clues are pain when you press the small flap in front of your ear or pull gently on the earlobe, a canal that looks swollen, and muffled hearing. A pharmacist can often help, and our guide to telling a wax blockage from an ear infection sets out the differences.
Much less commonly, a watery, smelly discharge from one ear that keeps coming back, with hearing slowly getting worse on that side, is a sign of a cholesteatoma. This is a build-up of skin cells behind the eardrum. It needs a GP appointment and usually a referral to an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist, so don't put it down to wax and wait.
Colour changes that mean you should get your ear looked at
Normal wax, whatever its colour, doesn't hurt and doesn't leak. See a pharmacist or book a GP appointment if you notice:
- discharge that is green, or yellow and runny, or that smells
- blood that keeps appearing, or that you can't explain
- white fluff, flaking or intense itching in the canal that doesn't settle
- earache that hasn't improved after 3 days
- hearing that is still dull after the wax has cleared
Get help from NHS 111 or ask for an urgent GP appointment if
- you suddenly lose hearing in one or both ears
- your ear is red, swollen and painful, or you have a high temperature
- fluid is coming out of your ear and you feel generally unwell
Go to A&E if clear fluid or blood comes out of your ear after a head injury.
What you can and can't tell by looking at ear wax
The wax you find on a towel, a pillowcase or the tip of an earbud came from the entrance of your ear. It says very little about what is happening deeper in, next to the eardrum, which is where blockages form.
That is why a clinician's view counts for more than the colour of what comes out. Using an otoscope, a microscope or a small camera, they can see whether the canal is blocked, whether the skin looks inflamed and whether the eardrum is intact. If the problem is wax, they can usually clear it in the same appointment with microsuction or another method.
Camera ear picks sold online will show you a picture, but they can't tell you what it means, and poking about with the scoop end can scratch the canal. Our guide to home ear wax kits and camera tools looks at which are reasonable and which to leave alone. Cotton buds are worse still, because they mostly push wax back in. See why cotton buds make ear wax worse.
If you are not sure what you are looking at, a pharmacist is a good first stop, or you can find an ear wax removal clinic near you. Unfamiliar terms such as cerumen and otitis externa are explained in our ear care glossary.
Common questions
Does what you eat change the colour of your ear wax?
There is no good evidence that everyday food changes the colour of ear wax in any way you would notice. Colour depends mainly on whether you make the wet or dry type and how long the wax has been in your ear. A sudden change that comes with pain, itching or discharge is far more likely to be an infection than anything on your plate.
Is it normal for each ear to have different coloured wax?
Yes. Your two ear canals are rarely the same shape, so one may clear wax quickly while the other holds on to it for longer. Older wax is darker, so the slower ear often looks browner. It only matters if one ear also feels blocked, sore or itchy, or starts to leak.
Why is my ear wax darker and oilier since I started using drops?
That is expected. Olive oil and pharmacy drops soften the old, dark wax further in, and over the following days it works its way out in soft brown lumps, often onto your pillow overnight. Keep going for the full course unless your ear becomes painful. Our guide to olive oil for ear wax explains what to expect.
Can ear wax colour be a sign of illness elsewhere in the body?
Very occasionally. A few rare inherited conditions change the colour or smell of ear wax, but they cause other, more obvious symptoms long before anyone looks at their wax, and doctors diagnose them in other ways. For almost everyone, the colour of ear wax tells you about the ear canal and nothing more.
What should my ears look like after wax removal?
Cleaner and a little pinker than usual, because the skin of the canal has lost its coating of wax for a while. A tiny spot of blood can appear if the skin was grazed, and it should stop quickly. Bleeding that carries on, or new pain or discharge, is a reason to call the clinic. See our aftercare guide for more.
Treatments mentioned in this guide
Microsuction
Gentle suction under magnification
