I Saved Up for That Holiday. I Didn’t Expect to Spend Half of It in Ear Pain.

It started on day two. That familiar itch, deep inside the ear canal. I knew exactly what it was, because I’d had it before. Swimmer’s ear. Otitis externa. Whatever you want to call it, I knew how the next 48 hours were going to go, and it had nothing to do with the holiday I’d planned.

We’d flown to Lanzarote in April. My partner and I had been saving for eight months. The resort had a stunning outdoor pool. There was an ocean I’d been genuinely excited about. On the flight over, I’d already mapped out mornings: wake up early, swim before breakfast, read on the sun lounger while it was still quiet. That was the plan. That was what I’d been looking forward to.

By the second afternoon, the itching had started. By that evening, I was pressing my palm against the side of my head hoping the pressure would do something. By midnight I was lying very still on my side, trying not to move my jaw because even that made it worse. My partner was fast asleep. The window was open. I could hear the pool from our room. I did not sleep.

The next morning I went to the resort pharmacy and paid an eye-watering amount for antibiotic ear drops. The pharmacist told me, in patient English, what I already knew: stay out of the water until it clears up. That took four days. Four days of sitting poolside with a book, watching other people swim, pressing a warm towel to my ear every few hours, and quietly seething at the injustice of it.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. It wasn’t even the second. I just kept hoping it wouldn’t happen again. I’d tried the cheap silicone plugs from the pharmacy. They either fell out or didn’t seal properly. I’d tried Blu Tack-style wax ones. They worked better but left residue and made everything feel blocked in an uncomfortable way. Every time I came back from a longer swim, I did the one-legged hop and the vigorous towel rub and told myself it would be fine. It wasn’t fine. The water got in. The bacteria followed. The infection came.

It was my friend Natalie who finally got me to do something about it properly. She’s a triathlete, swims in open water all year. She mentioned, completely casually over coffee, that she hadn’t had a single ear infection in two years since switching to proper swimming earplugs. Not the pharmacy kind. Something called Bollsen Watersafe+.

I’d Tried Earplugs Before. These Were Something Else Entirely.

I was sceptical. I’d tried swimming earplugs before and every pair had let me down. The foam ones absorbed water and were useless within a width. The wax ones were uncomfortable after ten minutes. The bell-shaped silicone ones from sports shops looked right but migrated out during tumble turns. I’d genuinely started to think earplugs just didn’t work, the way waterproof mascara never quite does.

Natalie showed me the Bollsen site on her phone. The product is called Watersafe+. It’s made in Europe, medical-grade silicone, and it has a dual-flange design, two separate flanges that create an independent seal at two points inside the canal. The idea is that if the outer flange shifts during a jump or a turn, the inner one holds. They’re rated to 3 metres depth. She’d dived off a board in them and they’d stayed put.

What got me was the detail about why swimmer’s ear actually happens. I’d always vaguely thought it was just about water getting in. But it’s more specific than that: when water sits trapped in the ear canal and can’t drain, it softens the skin lining the canal. That softened skin becomes vulnerable to the bacteria naturally present in pool water or the sea. The infection isn’t from the water itself; it’s from what happens when the water doesn’t leave. The earplugs don’t just make the swim more comfortable. They close off the mechanism entirely.

I ordered a pair that evening. They arrived two days later in a small aluminium travel case with two size options and a little card explaining the dual-flange fit. I tried them in the bath first (which felt slightly absurd, but I was committed). They seated differently from anything I’d tried before. Firmer. More sealed. No pulling sensation. No pressure. Just quiet.

So What Are These, Exactly?

BOLLSEN Watersafe+ (HP-050) are reusable medical-grade silicone earplugs designed specifically to prevent water entry during swimming, diving, and water sports. They are not the same as noise-reduction earplugs that happen to be used in water. They were built from the ground up to create a waterproof seal.

The dual-flange design means there are two concentric rings of silicone. The outer flange conforms to the shape of your ear canal opening. The inner flange seats deeper and provides a secondary seal. Together they hold to 3 metres depth, meaning they work not just for lane swimming but for diving, jumping in from the side, open-water swimming, and surfing. The 24 dB noise reduction is a secondary benefit. The primary function is keeping water out entirely.

They’re BPA-free, PVC-free, and latex-free. One pair lasts up to 100 uses, washable between sessions. The aluminium travel case clips onto a swim bag or fits in a bikini pocket. At £29.95 for up to 100 uses, that works out to less than 30p per swim. Compare that to a single course of antibiotic ear drops at a holiday pharmacy, and the arithmetic becomes fairly obvious fairly quickly.

The First Morning Swim Back. No Itch. No Dread. Just the Water.

The first real test was at my local leisure centre, about a week after they arrived. I swam thirty lengths. Nothing vigorous, just a steady front crawl. I did one flip turn at each end. When I got out, I did the usual mental check: is anything itching? Is there that heavy, muffled, waterlogged feeling? There wasn’t. My ears felt exactly as they had before I’d got in the pool.

I stood in the changing room, genuinely surprised. Not because the seal was remarkable in itself, but because I’d been so used to the low-level anxiety of swimming — the background thought of “is this going to be the time?” — that its absence felt strange. I’d been carrying that worry for years without quite clocking it as something to fix.

The following week I went back. Same result. The week after, I joined a friend for an open-water swim in a reservoir in the Cotswolds. Cold, murky water, the kind I would previously have found most worrying. We swam for about forty minutes. I came out fine. No itch that evening. No infection that followed.

I’ve now been using them for four months. I swim twice a week. I have not had a single episode of swimmer’s ear. That is not something I could have said about any four-month stretch in the previous five years. The holiday is booked again for September. This time I already know what goes in the hand luggage.

Why Bollsen Watersafe+ Works When Other Earplugs Don’t

Most swimming earplugs are designed as noise-reduction products that happen to resist water. Watersafe+ was engineered the other way around. The starting point was the seal. Everything else follows from that.

The dual-flange construction means the plug makes contact with the ear canal at two separate points. Single-flange plugs rely on one seal. If that seal breaks during a tumble turn or a jump from height, water gets in. With a dual-flange design, the inner seal remains even if the outer one shifts. That is why they are rated to 3 metres, not just “splash-resistant.”

The medical-grade silicone is soft enough to conform to the exact shape of your canal without pressure or discomfort, but firm enough to hold its position. It does not absorb water like foam. It does not leave residue like wax. It can be washed and reused up to 100 times without losing its seal properties.

✅ Dual-flange seal holds to 3m depth, including jumps, dives, and tumble turns
✅ Prevents swimmer’s ear by blocking water entry entirely, not just reducing it
✅ Medical-grade silicone, BPA-free, PVC-free, latex-free, safe for regular ear contact
✅ 24 dB certified noise reduction, independently tested by PZT GmbH (Notified Body No. 1974)
✅ Reusable up to 100 times, washable, includes aluminium travel case
✅ Trusted by 1,000,000+ people, over 10,000 verified reviews
✅ 40-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked

What Other Swimmers Are Saying

So Why Haven’t You Heard About These?

BOLLSEN started in a small workshop in Slovenia in 2016. The founder was an engineer, not a marketer. The first years were spent refining the product and getting it independently tested, not running advertising campaigns. Most of their early growth came through word of mouth: triathletes telling other triathletes, swimmers recommending them in open-water Facebook groups, physiotherapists mentioning them to patients who kept coming back with ear infections.

They’re not stocked in pharmacies or sports shops. They’re not on the shelf next to the cheap foam plugs. That’s a deliberate choice: the people who need to try them tend to find them when they’re actively looking for a real solution, rather than impulse-buying something off a rack and hoping for the best. Over one million people worldwide have now made that switch.

They’ve been covered in BBC Science Focus, Which?, Wired, and The Independent. The certification is genuine: 24 dB, independently tested by PZT GmbH, Notified Body No. 1974. The design patent is registered in the UK, EU, USA, Canada, Australia, and Japan. This is not a disposable product marketed on price. It is engineered to work properly, repeatedly, for as long as you need it.

Try Them Risk-Free for 40 Days

BOLLSEN offers a 40-day money-back guarantee on every pair of Watersafe+. If you swim with them, test them properly, and they don’t seal the way they should, you return them and get a full refund. No returns form, no lengthy process. That’s the deal.

BOLLSEN knows that most people arriving here have tried the pharmacy alternatives and been let down. The guarantee is there to remove that hesitation. You’re not betting on whether they work. You’re giving yourself 40 days to find out with nothing at stake financially.

For anyone who swims regularly, the maths is simple. One pair lasts up to 100 uses. At £29.95, that is less than 30p per swim. A single course of antibiotic ear drops costs more than the earplugs. The swim you miss because of an infection costs more than the earplugs. The half-ruined holiday costs considerably more than the earplugs. The question is not whether they’re worth it. The question is why you’re still on the fence.

Swim Every Day on Holiday. No Itch. No Infection. No Regrets.