Talk:Cotton swab

Dangerousness of Cotton swabs
Not really aiming to challenge anything, but are Q-Tips really "dangerous"? The article cites a CBC article about a man who got killed by an infection caused by prodding too deep with a cotton swab, but the coroner admitted that he has only heard of '4 or 5' fatal cases. Statistically, is this really dangerous? I'm sure there a lot of people who do use Q-Tips to clean their ears (myself included) and if there are not that many fatal cases, how dangerous can it be? Compared to, say, chain saws, where there are many more accidents and fatalities coming from improper use. Just putting that out there (I was a little bored!) 24.83.139.77 (talk) 02:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I would say that they are quite dangerous. Although, I would agree that it would be rather unlikely that q-tips will kill like chiansaws do, they have been known to cause perforated eardrums and can result in permanent hearing loss if used incorrectly. Even if that does not happen, q-tips can actually compound earwax, making it much harder to remove. Oracle7168 (talk) 07:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so they're dangerous. But would someone for the love of pete please explain how I'm supposed to stop the annoying itching and other problems that come with having too much earwax from time to time? Mrmcgibby (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

@Mrmcgibby: visit the laryngologist to have the wax removed. Once I had the eardrum punctured by the doctor performing the ear wax cleaning with the liquid in syringe ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.114.20.62 (talk) 06:48, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Baby Gays
"Baby Gays?" Is this vandalism or the odd truth? ---Ransom (--208.25.0.2 23:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
 * True. http://www.qtips.com/history.html F15x28 14:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * moved http://www.qtips.com/history.php 76.189.180.182 (talk) 18:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Merger
I've proposed this article to beq tips are whack son as they are about the exact same Item just with a different name. This can easily be seen if there are no complaints when i have time i shall merge the two articles myself. -- danieljackson (tlk) (cntrbtns) 06:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge: As long as the title remains as cotton swab. ◄  §ĉҺɑʀκs  ►  04:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Merger conclusion
The merge shall proceed and I shall keep the articles name cotton swab,as that is its true name and q-tip is only a nickname and generized brand name to begin with. I'll begin as soon as I possibly can.

-- danieljackson (tlk) (cntrbtns) 06:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Merger Finished
I've completed the merger and added the redirect from q-tips article now to the task of expanding the information on this entire page thier is so much info about the history left out i'm in the process of hunting down information for this article if anyone comes up with a website or book that might help me out leave it in my talk page.

-- danieljackson (tlk) (cntrbtns) Brownie 16:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Cotton Buds
Although in the UK some people say cotton buds, a lot of people call them Q-Tips. Bilky asko 16:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have no heard the phrase used once. --Fredrick day 21:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Etymology?
What is the origin of the word "Q-tip"? Obento Musubi  ( Contribs ) 04:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Never, mind, I found it. Apparently, it means "Quality tips". Obento  Musubi  ( Contribs ) 04:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Qatar!
http://books.google.com/books?id=928WjKdIWJMC&pg=PT411&lpg=PT411&dq=q-tips+qatar&source=bl&ots=71HeoBcZ9J&sig=Tc5WQ1ig6Y0vJj52MZ8O9X5b1Z4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Q6b_T7eFJ6Hm0QGHi-S7Bw&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=q-tips%20qatar&f=false 66.105.218.6 (talk) 04:52, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism
I'm new to wikipedia but just wanted to draw the attention of someone to the fact the page has been vandalised in at least two places (immediately following the words "British English" and then again in the description of what cottons swabs are made of). U02clw3 (talk) 23:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello, U02clw3, and thank you for pointing it out. The nonsense has been removed now, and the previous version was restored (see here). If you like, you can "undo" this kind of vandalizing edit yourself, should you encounter it again in the future. See Vandalism for more information. ---Sluzzelin talk  00:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging
This article talk page was automatically added with WikiProject Food and drink banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here. If you have concerns, please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

consistant name of cotton buds
They have been called cotton swabs (which I can only imagine is the medical term?) and q-tips (brand name?) in various parts of the article, so are we sticking with the name 'cotton swab' or streamlining to a more generally used term? Because it should at least be consistant throughout the article. Sky83 (talk) 20:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that on this page it says that the term 'ear bud' is used in South Africa and Australia, whereas in the UK, 'cotton bud' is used. Well, I live in England and I've never heard anybody call them anything BUT 'ear buds'. 'Cotton buds' is the term that they put on the packaging, as they want to discourage us from using them to clean out our ears, but everybody refers to them as 'ear buds'. So are you going by the official term by country or the term most commonly used by residents? Because if the latter, 'ear buds' is definitely more common, at least in the South where I live. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.33.79.174 (talk) 01:08, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I too live in Southern England, but I have only ever heard the term "ear buds" used to describe miniature in-ear headphones. Darkman101 (talk) 17:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I was born in London, and only ever heard them called "cotton buds", which is what every package says. I suppose that people who watch too much American TV might misname them "Q-Tips". I started hearing "ear buds" when I came to Australia.  More usually, "ear buds" is what Apple call earphones for some reason. Correctrix (talk) 01:58, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Lint free
What's the difference between regular q-tips and lint-free versions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.7.93.63 (talk) 19:20, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Q-Tip (musician) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:44, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Old photo of Q-tip box
the box states on the front "for adult ear care". I don't know hot to edit wiki pages so I'm just going to leave this here.

Old photo of q-tip box from washingtonpost

Link to the original washingtonpost article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.76.142.146 (talk) 19:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)