Earwax is produced by two types of glands in the outer third of your ear canal: ceruminous glands (a specialized form of sweat gland) and sebaceous glands (the same oil-producing glands found across your skin). These glands secrete a mixture of sweat and fatty material that combines with dead skin cells to form the sticky, waxy substance you recognize as earwax.
The Glands Behind Earwax
Your ear canal contains roughly 1,000 to 2,000 ceruminous glands. These are modified apocrine sweat glands, similar to the ones in your armpits, and they produce a watery secretion rich in antimicrobial compounds. Sitting alongside them are sebaceous glands, which release an oily substance called sebum. The two secretions blend together in the ear canal, and as dead skin cells from the canal lining mix in, the result is cerumen, the clinical name for earwax.
This isn’t a random byproduct. The combination creates a slightly acidic coating (around pH 6.1 in wet earwax) that discourages bacterial and fungal growth, traps dust and debris before it reaches the eardrum, and lubricates the thin skin of the ear canal to prevent drying and cracking.
What Earwax Is Made Of
About 52% of earwax’s dry weight is lipids, a broad category of fats and fat-like molecules. Researchers who broke down the lipid fraction found it contains fatty acids (22.7%), cholesterol (20.9%), ceramides (18.6%), cholesterol esters (9.6%), wax esters (9.3%), squalene (6.4%), and smaller amounts of other compounds. These lipids give earwax its water-repellent quality and much of its texture.
The rest is largely keratin, the same protein that makes up your outer skin, hair, and nails. As the skin lining the ear canal naturally sheds its dead cells (a process called desquamation), those cells become embedded in the oily secretions. This shedding of skin cells actually contributes a significant portion of earwax’s bulk and is one reason earwax looks different from the clear secretions the glands produce on their own.
Why Earwax Type Varies by Person
Humans produce one of two types of earwax: wet or dry. Wet earwax is honey-brown, sticky, and moist. Dry earwax is gray or tan, flaky, and crumbly. Which type you have is determined almost entirely by a single gene called ABCC11.
A specific variation in this gene acts as a switch. If you inherit two copies of the “A” version (one from each parent), you produce dry earwax. If you inherit one or two copies of the “G” version, you produce wet earwax. The wet type is dominant, meaning only one copy of G is needed.
The dry earwax variant appears to have originated in northeastern Asia roughly 2,000 generations ago and spread because it offered a selective advantage. It’s extremely common in East Asian populations, becomes less frequent moving toward Europe, and is rare in Africa. Interestingly, the same gene variant affects sweat composition. People with the dry earwax genotype produce sweat with lower concentrations of the chemical precursors that cause body odor, which is why the two traits tend to travel together.
How Your Ear Cleans Itself
Your ear canal has a built-in conveyor belt. The skin lining the canal grows outward from the eardrum toward the opening of the ear, carrying earwax and trapped debris along with it. This process, called epithelial migration, moves at an average rate of about 0.145 millimeters per day in the ear canal. That’s roughly the speed a fingernail grows.
Jaw movements from chewing and talking help this process along by gently flexing the ear canal and loosening wax from the walls. Once earwax reaches the outer ear, it typically dries, flakes, and falls out on its own or washes away during bathing. For most people, this system works without any intervention.
What Increases Earwax Production
Several factors can cause your glands to produce more earwax or make buildup more likely. Wearing hearing aids, earbuds, or earplugs regularly blocks the natural outward migration and can push wax deeper into the canal. Narrow or unusually shaped ear canals, bony growths in the canal (common in swimmers), and excessive hair in the ear canal all slow the self-cleaning process.
Age plays a role too. The ceruminous glands become less active as you get older, producing drier, harder wax that doesn’t migrate as easily. Stress may also influence earwax composition. Earwax contains cortisol, your body’s primary stress hormone, and research has explored using earwax cortisol levels as a marker of chronic stress, similar to how cortisol is measured in hair. The ceruminous glands, being apocrine glands, respond to emotional and physical stimuli in ways that can subtly alter their output.
When Earwax Becomes a Problem
Earwax only needs attention when it causes symptoms or blocks a clinician’s view of the eardrum. This is called cerumen impaction, and it affects roughly 6% of the general population. Symptoms include a feeling of fullness in the ear, muffled hearing, earache, ringing, or dizziness.
If you’re not experiencing symptoms and your ears can be examined normally, there’s no medical reason to remove earwax. Current clinical guidelines specifically recommend against routine cleaning of asymptomatic ears.
Safe Ways to Manage Earwax
Cotton swabs are the most common tool people reach for, but they consistently push wax deeper rather than removing it, and they risk injuring the canal or eardrum. The simplest safe approach is to let warm shower water run into your ears occasionally, then tilt your head to let it drain.
For stubborn buildup, over-the-counter drops designed to soften earwax (typically containing mineral oil, baby oil, or hydrogen peroxide) can help the natural migration process do its job. Gentle irrigation with body-temperature water is another option, though it should be avoided if you have a hole in your eardrum, an active ear infection, or a history of ear surgery. For impaction that doesn’t respond to home care, a clinician can remove the wax using irrigation, suction, or small instruments under direct visualization.