Hello, I blog!

Oh boy, if only we are able to eradicate wax from our ears with the same mechanism as how we rid ourselves of our bodily wastes.

For the past week, I’ve been (and I still am) partially deaf, thanks to a completely blocked right ear. And what I can say after this entire experience is – never take the ability to hear for granted.

Speaking at a volume which most people consider as “normal” is a challenge. Because of the blocked ear, my voice reverberates inside my head as I speak, so I sound much louder (to myself) than I really am. So I end up speaking at a volume much softer than usual. Which also means I have to repeat myself more.

Trying to talk at my regular volume gives me a headache. (Thanks to my voice reverberating in my head.)

I can’t quite hear as well too – which also means my friends have to repeat themselves more.

And sometimes I just don’t feel like asking people to repeat themselves (and I don’t even want to explain how I can’t hear properly in one ear – because it invites a deluge of questions which I don’t want to answer) so I just nod my head and pretend I understood them.

Unless of course, they asked a question (which I didn’t hear).

Then, cue the awkward silence.

I love rings. So much so I have a ridiculous number of them. It’s rather easy to get nice rings (cheaply too) here in Singapore, with my favourite haunts being the weekly flea markets at SCAPE and on the mobile e-commerce app Carousell.

My funky (bordering slightly on geeky) ring collection.

I grew my collection again yesterday at the SCAPE flea market. I usually wear adjustable rings or rings with an inner diameter of 17mm. But this particular stall I was browsing didn’t have many adjustable rings, I spent ages trying on ring after ring to gauge the right sizing.

However, I still went home with two rings in the wrong size.

Perhaps my fingers had expanded a little more than usual yesterday, because both rings were a millimeter too big. Sounds small, but it makes a lot of difference in ring sizing. Plus, I have really tiny fingers to begin with.

A search online on how to tighten rings brought up suggestions such as attaching a ring guard/sizer (cumbersome) or applying a thin layer of cushion solution.

The latter method appealed to me but it was near impossible to find cushion solution here in Singapore. (I don’t even know where to begin.)

So I decided to substitute it with something else. I used Sally Hansen’s Diamond Flash Top Coat. (Actually, any clear nail polish/top coat/base coat will do fine too.)

To reduce your ring size by one milimetre, apply three coats of polish on the inner surface of your ring, leaving it to dry for about a minute in between coats.

After applying the last coat, let the ring sit for half a day to ensure that the thick coat of polish dries completely. The layer of nail polish coating should feel solid to the touch, even when it is pressed. If it feels soft/cushiony, it has not dried enough yet.

Spot the polish coating on the inner surface of the ring on the left.

And voila – a simple method to tighten a ring using products you’d (most probably) already have at home. What more, you can CTRL-Z the whole process if you make a mistake. Just use nail polish remover and you’ll be back at the original size.