Reader's DeskThree to Five Drops With the Head Tilted, Five Minutes of Waiting, and a Label That Stops at Forty-Eight Hours: I Read a Swiss Box of Homeopathic Ear Drops From the Front Panel to the Small Print
Similasan sells a third of an ounce of ear drops for the ringing, buzzing and humming some of us hear when the house goes quiet. I read the label on file with the National Library of Medicine, worked out what 12X and 15X mean in a bottle this size, and set the label's own two-day limit beside a sound that, for most people who hear it, has lasted years.
This is a paid advertisement. Sponsored by iHerb, LLC.
Bernard Holt is the pen name of this desk.
Everything on this page about the drops comes from three places: the product's official label, on file with the National Library of Medicine, the maker's own product page, and the listing of the retailer that sells them, iHerb, all read on September 17, 2026.
This is a homeopathic product, and this page makes no claim of its own about what it does.
Where the label makes a claim, the page says the label makes it, and says on what basis.
You hear it after the television goes off.
A thin, steady tone, or a hum, or something like a far-off cicada, and nobody else in the room hears a thing.
About one adult in ten in this country heard it in the past year, by the largest national survey there is. [1]
More than a quarter of them had been hearing it for over fifteen years. [1]
Keep that second number in mind. It comes back.
This page is about a small white and pink box sold for that sound, and about one sentence on its label that I haven't seen in a single advertisement for it.
The sentence says to use the drops for no more than forty-eight hours.
I'm not going to tell you the drops work, and I'm not going to tell you they don't.
I'm going to tell you what's in the box, what the numbers after each Latin name mean, what the small print says, and what the label itself tells you to do when two days are up.
Three to five drops in the ear, up to four times a day, for no more than forty-eight hours. Those are the label's numbers, and every section of this page comes back to them.
Here's what the product is.
Ear drops from Similasan, a company founded in Switzerland, sold here by Similasan Corporation with a toll-free number and an email address printed on the label. [2]
The bottle holds 10 milliliters, a third of a fluid ounce, which is two teaspoons.
The box calls the drops homeopathic, on the front, in capital letters.
The name on the box is "Ear Ringing" followed by one more word.
That word is on a list our advertising rules don't allow, so this page calls them the Similasan Ear Ringing drops, and you'll recognize the box when you see it.
I did what this desk always does.
I read the label before the sales page.
I read the official label line by line, then the maker's product page, then put the two side by side, because they don't say quite the same thing.
I read what the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission each say about homeopathic products.
I looked for a trial of these drops and found none.
I looked for any controlled trial of any homeopathic preparation for this sound and found one, of 28 people, and I'll give you its result in the fourth section. [3]
What I found is a box that is more candid than its advertising: eight ingredients diluted to one part in a trillion or further, a line of small print that says the claims aren't based on accepted medical evidence, and a two-day limit that, by the survey's numbers, most readers of this page passed years ago.
One more thing before the first section, because most of you got here from one of our own advertisements.
Those ads, like the ads for everything in this category, talk about a cup of coffee, a salt shaker and a tone you're supposed to hear on your phone.
None of that is in the box, and I won't pretend it is.
The cup, the salt and the tone test get the seventh section to themselves, and the honest version of every headline we run is in the guide linked at the foot of this page.
First · The boxA Third of an Ounce, Eight Latin Names, and the Word "Homeopathic" on the Front in Capital Letters
This is what arrives.
A white box with a pink panel, a drawing of an ear with a sound wave coming out of it, and five words in a column: ringing, humming, buzzing, pounding, roaring.
Under them, a green band about the ingredients, then "Homeopathic" and "Original Swiss Formula", then the size: 10 ml, 0.33 fl oz.
Inside is a small squeezable plastic bottle with a soft tip and a seal around its neck.
The label says not to use it if that seal is missing or broken. [2]
The back of the box carries the panel every over-the-counter product carries, with active ingredients, uses, cautions and directions in the usual order.
The active ingredients are eight, each with a Latin name and a number: Arnica 15X, Chininum sulphuricum 12X, Eriodictyon californicum 12X, Hepar 12X, Lachesis 15X, Lycopodium 12X, Silica 15X and Thiosinaminum 15X. [2]
The inactive ingredients are two: purified water and vegetable glycerin.
The maker's page adds that the drops contain no preservatives.
Then comes the sentence the whole product rests on, and I'll quote it whole, because the first five words do a lot of work.
"According to homeopathic principles, the active ingredients in this product temporarily relieve minor symptoms associated with ear discomfort due to: ringing, buzzing, roaring, humming, pounding." [2]
"According to homeopathic principles."
That isn't my qualifier.
It's the label's, it opens the sentence, and the third and fourth sections are about what it means.
A third of an ounce of water and glycerin carrying eight homeopathic actives, in a box that says "homeopathic" on the front and "according to homeopathic principles" on the back. The box is plain about what it is.
Second · The gestureHead to One Side, the Tip Outside the Canal, Three to Five Drops, and Three to Five Minutes Before You Straighten Up
The directions are specific, and I'll give them to you the way the label does.
These drops go in the ear and nowhere else; the label says so in capitals, and says not to use them in the eyes. [2]
You don't swallow them, and if someone does, the label says to get medical help or call a Poison Control Center.
You remove the seal, twist off the cap, and tilt your head to one side.
You don't squeeze the bottle; you squeeze the soft plastic tip, and three to five drops fall into the ear.
The tip stays outside the ear canal.
That's the label's instruction, in parentheses, and it's a good one.
Then you wait.
Three to five minutes with your head still tilted, or with a piece of cotton in the ear, and you wipe away whatever runs out.
Up to four times a day.
For children under twelve, the label says to ask a clinician first.
And then the line this page is named for: for no more than forty-eight hours, unless a clinician directs otherwise. [2]
That line gets the fifth section to itself.
Head tilted, tip outside the canal, three to five drops, three to five minutes, up to four times a day, two days at most. A careful set of directions, and the last number is the one the advertising leaves off.
Third · The Latin and the numbersWhat 12X and 15X Mean in a Ten-Milliliter Bottle, With a Can of Tonic Water for Comparison
Eight names, and each is an ordinary thing once you translate it.
Arnica is the yellow mountain daisy of rub-on creams.
Eriodictyon californicum is yerba santa, a sticky-leaved shrub of the California hills, and Lycopodium is club moss, by way of its spores.
Chininum sulphuricum is quinine sulfate, the salt of the bitter in cinchona bark and in tonic water.
Thiosinaminum is a small sulfur compound first made from the oil of mustard seed, which is why the maker's page lists "mustard seed" as a key ingredient.
Hepar is calcium sulfide, traditionally made from oyster shell and sulfur, and Silica is the mineral of quartz and sand.
Lachesis is the one that makes people put the box down: it starts from the venom of the bushmaster, a South American snake.
Before you put the box down too, read the number after each name.
That number is the whole story.
In homeopathy, X means a dilution of one part in ten, and the number in front says how many times in a row it was done.
So 12X is one part in ten, twelve times over, which is one part in a trillion, and 15X is one part in a thousand trillion.
One part in a trillion. One part in a thousand trillion.
Now the arithmetic, because a trillion is hard to picture.
The bottle holds ten milliliters, about ten grams; at one part in a trillion, the most quinine sulfate the whole bottle can hold is about ten trillionths of a gram.
For comparison, federal food rules allow tonic water to carry up to 83 parts of quinine per million, which comes to as much as 29 milligrams in a twelve-ounce can. [4]
That is roughly three billion times the most this bottle can hold.
The snake venom is at 15X, a thousand times more dilute again.
Whatever else you think of it, the amount is not the thing to worry about.
Why quinine at all?
Because homeopathy rests on two ideas from the late 1700s: that like is answered by like, and that the more a substance is diluted, the more it does. [5]
Quinine at full strength has long been known to set the ears ringing; the National Institutes of Health lists anti-malaria medicines, of which quinine is the oldest, among the things that can bring the sound on. [6]
So a homeopath, reasoning from like to like, reaches for quinine, and then dilutes it a trillion times.
That is the principle the label means when it says "according to homeopathic principles".
It's a tradition with a long history, and the next section is about where it stands with the people who weigh evidence for a living.
Eight familiar substances behind eight Latin names, each diluted to one part in a trillion or further; a can of tonic water holds about three billion times more quinine than this bottle can. The numbers on the label are dilutions, not doses.
Fourth · The small print"Not Accepted Medical Evidence. Not FDA Evaluated." The Box's Own Sentence, Three Federal Agencies, and One Trial of 28 People
At the bottom of the panel there's an asterisk, and beside it a sentence I'll quote as the maker prints it.
"Claims based on traditional homeopathic practice, not accepted medical evidence. Not FDA evaluated." [2]
I give the box credit for that sentence.
It's on the maker's product page too, under the buy buttons, in the same words.
Three federal agencies say the same thing at greater length.
The National Institutes of Health says there's little evidence to support homeopathy as effective for any specific health condition, and that no homeopathic product is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. [5]
The Food and Drug Administration says the homeopathic products on American shelves have not been reviewed by the agency for safety or effectiveness. [7]
And the Federal Trade Commission says that a homeopathic product sold without scientific backing has to tell the buyer two things plainly: that there is no scientific evidence it works, and that its claims rest on theories from the 1700s that most modern medical experts don't accept. [8]
The box says it in eleven words. The agencies take longer.
Then I went looking for trials.
For these drops, I found none: nothing on the maker's page, nothing in the National Library of Medicine's index under the product or the company.
For any homeopathic preparation tested against this sound in a controlled trial, I found one.
It was run in Birmingham, England, in the 1990s, with 28 people who heard the sound, a homeopathic tablet, a matched placebo, and neither side knowing who got which. [3]
The result comes in two halves, and you should hear both.
Asked which they preferred, 14 of the 28 chose the homeopathic tablet, which is exactly half, which is what a coin would do. [3]
And on the measurements, the loudness scales and the audiology tests, the tablet showed no significant improvement over the placebo.
The authors' conclusion: it could not be shown to be more effective than the matched placebo. [3]
The qualifier is real.
That was a different preparation, swallowed as a tablet, in a small trial a generation ago; it isn't a test of these drops.
But it's the only controlled test of the idea that I could find, and it came out even.
So the honest sentence is the one already on the box: traditional practice, not accepted medical evidence.
The box tells you its claims rest on homeopathic tradition and not on accepted medical evidence, three federal agencies say the same, and the one small controlled trial of a homeopathic preparation for this sound found no difference from placebo. There is no trial of these drops themselves.
Fifth · The forty-eight hoursThe Label Gives the Drops Two Days. The National Survey Says Most People Have Heard the Sound for Years.
This is the section I'd read twice.
The directions end with a limit: up to four times a day, for no more than forty-eight hours, unless a clinician directs otherwise. [2]
And the cautions repeat it from the other side: stop, and ask a clinician, if the symptoms last more than forty-eight hours. [2]
Two days.
Not a month, not a bottle, not "until you notice a difference".
Now bring back the number from the top of the page.
In the national survey, more than a quarter of the adults who heard the sound had been hearing it for over fifteen years, and more than a third heard it nearly all the time. [1]
The label is written for two days. The sound, for most people, is measured in years.
Put those side by side and the label is telling most readers of this page something plain.
If you've heard the sound for longer than two days, the label's own instruction is to stop and see a clinician, and that instruction applies before you've opened the box.
I don't read that as a flaw in the label.
I read it as the most useful sentence on it.
The label has more of the same kind, and they're worth knowing before the first drop.
It says to stop and ask a clinician if there's any discharge from the ear, or a fever of 102 degrees or higher. [2]
It says to ask before using the drops at all if the ear is draining, if it hurts, itches or has a rash, if you've had an operation on the ear, or if you've been dizzy. [2]
And it says that, according to homeopathic principles, symptoms may get worse for a while before they get better. [2]
If the sound is new, if it's in one ear only, if it came with a change in your hearing, or if the room has been turning, none of that is a job for a box from a shelf.
That's a call to a clinician this week, and the ear specialists' own guideline says the same. [9]
If pregnant, trying to be, or nursing, the label says to ask a health professional first. [2]
And keep the bottle away from children, which the label also says.
The label limits the drops to forty-eight hours and tells you to see a clinician if the sound lasts longer, and for most people who hear it, it already has. Read that line as advice, because it's good advice.
Sixth · The maker's page and the labelFour Places Where the Sales Page and the Official Label Don't Say the Same Thing
I read the maker's product page after the label, and I kept a list.
One: the page says to use the drops as often as needed.
The label says up to four times a day and no more than forty-eight hours, and when the two disagree, the label is the one on file with the government.
Two: the page says there are no known interactions or reasons not to use them.
The label lists five situations where you should ask a clinician before the first drop, and I gave you all five in the last section.
Three: the page describes the actives as botanical extracts.
Three of the eight are plants, one is a salt from tree bark and one was first made from mustard oil; the other three are calcium sulfide, silica and the venom of a snake.
Four: the page names its two key ingredients as quinine and mustard seed.
On the label they're Chininum sulphuricum 12X and Thiosinaminum 15X, which is quinine sulfate and a sulfur compound, each diluted past a trillion to one.
When the page and the label disagree, I go with the label.
The page also says the company has been trusted in Switzerland for over forty-five years and makes more than 190 products near the Alps.
Those are the maker's words about itself; I have no reason to doubt the dates, and they tell you about the company, not about the drops.
The label is more careful than the sales page on four counts: how long, how often, when to ask first, and what the ingredients are. The label is the document of record.
A note · The stars1,047 Ratings on the Retailer's Listing, an Average of 4.0, and Why This Page Quotes None of Them
The drops are sold by iHerb, a large online retailer based in Irvine, California, and its listing shows 1,047 customer ratings with an average of 4.0 stars.
The breakdown is on the listing: 536 at five stars, 186 at four, 167 at three, 71 at two and 87 at one.
So about two buyers in three were pleased, and about one in seven gave it one or two stars.
I read the reviews the listing showed me, and I'm not going to quote any of them, for three reasons.
One: nearly every review names the sound and says it went down, stayed the same or got worse, and a sentence like that is a claim about results that this page has no way to check.
Two: the retailer states that it doesn't verify or endorse what reviews say, and it gives reviewers a small store credit for each review, favorable or not.
Three: for a homeopathic product, the Federal Trade Commission asks that customer endorsements not undercut the plain statement that there's no scientific evidence it works. [8]
A row of happy quotes would do exactly that.
Stars tell you how buyers felt. They can't tell you what the drops did.
A sound like this one rises and falls by itself from week to week, which is why the trial in the fourth section needed a placebo group to mean anything.
Read the stars with that in mind, including the 87 people who gave it one.
A 4.0 average across 1,047 ratings, with roughly one buyer in seven giving one or two stars. This page quotes no reviews, because for a homeopathic product a customer's sentence isn't evidence and shouldn't be dressed as it.
Seventh · The cup, the salt shaker and the tone testThe Coffee Our Ads Point At, the Salt They Point At, the Test on Your Phone, and the Four Things That Hold Up
Our advertisements, and the ads for everything else in this category, keep pointing at the same three things: a cup of coffee, a salt shaker, and a tone you're supposed to hear through your phone.
You're owed the plain version of each.
The cup first.
The largest study of coffee and this sound followed 65,085 women for eighteen years, and the ones who took in the most caffeine were somewhat less likely to develop it, not more. [10]
It's an observational study of younger women, so it can't tell you what your own cup is doing.
What it can tell you is that the case against coffee is thin, and up to about four cups a day sits within the intake Europe's food authority raises no concern about for healthy adults. [11]
Keep the coffee. Have it earlier if it costs you sleep.
The salt.
Eating less of it is advised for one particular inner-ear condition that comes with dizzy spells, and that's for a clinician to sort out; for the ordinary tone in a quiet room, I found no trial showing that less salt turns it down.
The tone test.
A sound played by an advertisement isn't a hearing test and can't be one.
A real one is done by an audiologist, one ear at a time, in a quiet booth, with calibrated equipment.
And it starts with someone looking into the ear canal, where a plug of wax can account for the whole thing. [6] [9]
That matters more than usual on a page about ear drops.
Before you put anything into an ear, it's worth knowing what's already in there.
Now the four things that hold up, briefly, because the guide has the long version.
First, the examination: the ear specialists' guideline asks for a prompt, full hearing test when the sound is in one ear, has lasted six months, or comes with trouble hearing. [9]
Second, the hearing aid.
About one in three people between 65 and 74 has some hearing loss, most people who hear the sound have some, and a hearing aid is one of the main options when the two go together. [12] [6]
Since October 2022, an adult who believes his hearing loss is mild to moderate can buy one over the counter, without a fitting. [13]
Third, protection.
Long or repeated sound at 85 decibels or more, a mower, a sander, a concert, headphones at full volume, can cost you hearing, and earplugs and distance are the protection. [14]
In the national survey, the sound was about three times as common in people with steady loud noise at work. [1]
Fourth, the night.
The National Institutes of Health lists the plainest thing on this page: a fan, a radio turned low, an app playing rain, so the bedroom isn't silent enough to hear the tone. [6]
It costs very little to try tonight.
And it's the one item in this section that a great many people already rely on.
The coffee isn't the culprit, the salt is a clinician's question, the tone in an advertisement isn't a test, and the things that hold up are a hearing examination, a hearing aid when one is needed, earplugs when it's loud, and a fan at night. None of them comes in a box.
Eighth · The plain readingWhat a Box Like This Can Honestly Offer, in the Label's Own Terms
So what is this box, read plainly?
It's a third of an ounce of purified water and vegetable glycerin carrying eight substances diluted to one part in a trillion or further, made by a long-established Swiss-founded company, with careful directions and a careful label.
It's sold, according to homeopathic principles, for the temporary relief of minor ringing, buzzing, roaring, humming and pounding, for up to two days. [2]
The label says its claims aren't based on accepted medical evidence.
Three federal agencies agree, and the one small trial of the idea came out even. [5] [7] [8] [3]
The box is sold by iHerb, LLC, of Irvine, California, which publishes a street address and a customer-support email, and whose listing says returns and refunds follow its own posted policy.
The price is the one on the retailer's listing on the day you look; this page prints none, because it changes.
Some people use homeopathic products and like them, and that's their decision to make with their eyes open.
This page exists so that yours are.
Two days by the label. Then the clinician, by the label.
If you decide to try the box, try it the label's way: three to five drops, up to four times a day, two days, and then stop.
If the sound is still there on the third morning, the label has already told you what to do next, and the examination in the seventh section is what it means.
And if you've heard the tone for months or years, run the other test first.
A hearing examination, one ear at a time, with someone looking in the canal, is the one step on this page that can find something fixable.
I've kept the honest sentence for the end, and most of it is already printed on the box.
These are homeopathic ear drops whose claims rest on traditional homeopathic practice and not on accepted medical evidence; they haven't been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration; their eight actives are diluted at least a trillion times; no trial of them exists that I could find; and their own label gives them forty-eight hours before it sends you to a clinician.
The label lists eight homeopathic actives, each at the 12X or 15X dilution, in purified water and vegetable glycerin; it states no amount in milligrams for any of them.
Each of the eight is explained, with its plain English name, in the guide linked at the foot of this page.
Where to get it
Homeopathic ear drops from a Swiss-founded maker: eight actives at the 12X and 15X dilutions in purified water and vegetable glycerin, three to five drops at a time, for no more than 48 hours by the label.
CHECK AVAILABILITYOne 10 mL box of homeopathic ear drops · for use in the ear only · up to four times a day for no more than forty-eight hours, by the label
One box is all the label's directions call for.
Two days of drops, four times a day, doesn't come close to emptying it.
Sold by iHerb, LLC, Irvine, California · homeopathic ear drops · claims based on traditional homeopathic practice, not accepted medical evidence · not evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration
Questions readers ask
Will these drops stop the ringing?
Nobody can honestly promise that, and this page doesn't. The label's own words are that, according to homeopathic principles, the drops temporarily relieve minor symptoms, and that the claim is not based on accepted medical evidence. [2]
How long can I use them?
No more than forty-eight hours, by the label, unless a clinician directs otherwise. If the sound lasts longer than that, the label says to stop and ask a clinician. [2]
I've heard the sound for years. Is this box for me?
By its own label, it's written for two days of minor symptoms. For a sound that has lasted months or years, the step with evidence behind it is a full hearing examination. [9]
Is there really snake venom in it?
The starting material of one of the eight actives is bushmaster venom, diluted to 15X, which is one part in a thousand trillion. At that dilution the amount is not the concern; whether the drops do anything is the open question.
What does 12X mean?
One part in ten, twelve times over: one part in a trillion. A twelve-ounce can of tonic water may hold about three billion times more quinine than this whole bottle can. [4]
Has anyone tested these drops?
I found no trial of them. The one controlled trial of a homeopathic preparation for this sound, a tablet tested in 28 people, found no significant difference from placebo. [3]
Is coffee making the sound worse?
The largest prospective study pointed the other way, in women: more caffeine, somewhat less of the sound over eighteen years. [10]
Coffee late in the day can spoil sleep, and a bad night makes any sound seem louder. That's a reason to move the cup, not to give it up.
What should I do before putting anything in my ear?
Have someone look in the canal. A plug of wax can cause the sound by itself, and the label says to ask first if the ear is draining, sore, itchy, or has been operated on. [6] [2]
Who wrote this page, and why?
A writer working for the seller's advertising, under a pen name. We earn a commission if you buy through the button, which is why the page exists and why every claim on it is sourced.