For me, so much as trying on an earring makes my ears blow up into sensitive red balloons that won't calm down for days. Even the "hypoallergenic" pair of earrings I got pierced with at Claire's in the mall inflamed my lobes. So, needless to say, I've stayed away from earrings altogether since. My thinking: If hypoallergenic earrings would make my ears a raw mess, any other ear adornments are definitely out of the question.

My sans-earring life was peachy, that is, until hoops and geometric metal earrings became a trend, and that trend started calling my name. I felt like if I could wear gigantic hoops or mismatched metal earrings with my favorite T-shirts, everything would be right in my life. But, at the end of the day, every trend has its limit, and monster ears wasn't worth either spending oodles of money, or scouring the web for a pair of aesthetically pleasing earrings that were also hypoallergenic, and had a higher chance (read: still a chance of failure) of keeping my ears happy.

So, I gave up again. That is, until I stumbled across Justine Clenquet, who made my dream earrings: a gold hoop adorned with smaller silver hoops (hooray for mixing metals), for under $100. Pus or no pus, I had to have them — I decided to go for the (plated 24 karat) gold, and try 'em. They were just that good.