Swimming is a fun way to stay healthy, but water in your ears can be annoying. To have a great time in the water, you need good earplugs. In this guide, we’ll talk about the top 5 swimming earplugs that experts recommend for a fantastic time in the water.

The 5 Best Swimming Earplugs

1. Speedo ergo ear plugs for swimming

I bought these swimming earplugs because getting water flushed into my ears can cause vertigo. When I go to my hairdresser’s and lean back in the sink, she never fails to spray water right into my ears. I wanted Mack’s swimming earplugs but they wouldn’t have gotten here on time so I got these. The earplugs have a little case which is nice and they looked like they would be perfect for my needs. However, I have small ear canals and these hurt a little getting them in and again, pulling them out. A little water leaked in but they did successfully ward off most of the water that was being sprayed into my ears. I now have Mack’s Earplugs and will use them when I go back in three weeks for highlights. They are more pliable and fit my canals better. But no doubt, Speedos are good too. If you have average ear canals, they do form a nice seal and keep water out. You can still hear but, in my case since I already have hearing loss, it is quite muffled. Decent price, decent earplugs.

Technical Details

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2. Mack’s pillow soft silicone earplugs

After extensively searching online and reading a bazillion reviews I decided to try these out. I opted for a smaller size since a few people said the regulars were a bit big (and they could easily take some of the material off and re roll them to size) I decided to just go for a children’s size, which others had recommended. I liked the ease of use.

These are pliable, like playdough but a little harder. I easily fit them to my ears and after having tried the various foam plug types of I felt these were a lot easier to manage. Foam plug would fall out of my ears! Even after carefully following the directions to roll up the others, and at some point I cut off small slices of the edges of the foam ones…nothing worked for me. With Mack’s swimming earplugs I had no trouble at all.

They did not get lost in my ear as a few people worried about, and they worked well. I ended up eventually removing a little of the material on these, and that fit me a little better. These are not as noise proof and have a lower decibel level BUT for me it muffles all the sounds enough that they no longer bother me. It is like a very light white noise to me. I sleep in a room w a window AC unit and a very loud (LOUD) snorer, and neither of those things bother me now. And the PRICE??? These are super inexpensive. I would say they are definitely reusable. I suppose for cleanliness it is good to change them out often, but I have not done that.

3. TYR Silicone Molded Earplugs

I’ve always suffered from ear infections and just started a swimming earplugs routine so I needed a way to keep my ear canal dry. I saw the molded silicone ones from Mack’s swimming earplugs are more highly rated by avid swimmers but I wanted something simple. These have done a good job so far. One of my ear canals are smaller than the other so I was a little worried they might not work but I’ve had no issue. As an added bonus, they rely on water pressure to form the seal which allows you to hear better when not in the water. Excellent value as far as I’m concerned. The silicone plugs have worn well after 4 weeks of almost daily use and the only time I’ve been getting water in my ears is because I didn’t set the seal properly.

My only improvement suggestion would be a better carrying case. It’s only going to be a matter of time before the latch on the supplied case breaks and the soft silicone in the ear plugs needs to be protected when not being used or they will deform/tear. At $5 it’s not the end of the world to buy another set every few months though I may look for a better carrying case to fit these.

4. Putty Buddies Floating Earplugs

My kids (2 and 7-years-old) love to use the bath as their own personal swimming pool and “Putty Buddies” work great. I had to separate them in half to mold better to their little ears. I tried them out first on myself before using them for my kids. The first application was somewhat challenging for me, because I didn’t cover all the outer ear openings and water seeped into my ear.

But upon my second try, I made sure to snugly cover all outer ear openings and they kept all the water out – Perfectly. Removal was easy, I just pushed on the back of their ear and they ‘popped’ right out. And, the “Bonzai Bear” carrying case was a nice bonus to store them in. We will be using them often for swimming earplugs lessons and bath time. Overall, I appreciate that they are durable, great quality (other brands we tried didn’t fit as well and keep the water out), affordable price, bright colors, fun application, comfortable, awesome performance (i.e. they stayed in place), and easy removal. Great accessory for my entire family and I am impressed!

Technical Details

5. Decibullz Custom Molded Earplugs

When asked for a straight star rating for this product I found myself wanting to give it two stars because it the instructions were so frustrating and also wanting to give four (or even five!) stars because once I found a far better way to mold them, the final product dampens sound wonderfully and is quite comfortable!I settled on four stars but only if you find a better way to mold them than what is explicated by the instructions.One of the biggest problems for me with the instructions is that they SEEM to be quite well thought out and illustrated … until I tried to follow them. Firstly, they illustrate doing the entire molding process WITH the silicone tip and outer plug installed even though they explicitly state that neither should be in place during molding. Secondly … oh, who cares … I’ll just tell you how I got excellent results custom molding them.

1. Decide which silicone tip fits your ear canal best. If you have experience fitting new tips on ear buds to get a good seal then this should be a fairly simple choice. I have big ear canals so I used the large ones. Take the outer plugs out of the little bag, too (small plastic barrel shapes). Set outers and tips aside where you can access them quickly.

2. Boil water – I used a ceramic coffee mug in the microwave.

3. Remove boiling mug of water from heat and set it somewhere safe.

4. Drop ONE bare swimming earplugs (no silicone tip or outer plug installed) into the water, which should no longer be boiling but very hot. Let it sit in the water for 5 mins.

5. Make sure your silicone tip and outer plug are within reach and use a metal spoon to scoop the hot earplug out of the hot water.

6. (Big difference from directions) Immediately install silicone tip and outer plug on hot earplug while it is still in the spoon.

7. Let assembled plug cool briefly (20-30 seconds including time it took to attach tip and outer plug).

8. Using clean, bare hands place plug into the PROPERLY MARKED ear (exam gloves will stick to the warm plugs like crazy – it’s not as good an idea as I thought it would be!).

9. Press outer plug so that silicone tip fits snugly in your ear canal. You do want a good seal or they wont dampen sound well.

10. Use your index finger to keep the tip seated in your ear canal and one or two other fingers on the same hand to gentle press the outer part to mold into your lower ear area for five minutes.OPTIONAL: once I got it shaped, I kept pressing and ran my whole ear with the plug properly shaped and pressed in under a cold water faucet. This way I did it in about 1.5 mins instead od 5 mons and I got excellent molding that held its shape perfectly.

REPEAT ALL STEPS ON OTHER EAR PLUG IN OTHER EAR.When i used the method outlined by the instructions (actively molding the hot plug WITHOUT the silicone tip or outer plug), the hard plastic post that you install the tip on SCRATCHED THE HELL out of my ear canal. It bled a little and that’s dumb.If you get nothing else from this mess that i’ve written, please be careful if you do it the way the instructions tell you to! Don’t scratch your ear canal! It’s annoying.