[cwillu]

I've used standard foam earplugs to sleep in a place where deranged screaming and snoring loud enough to wake the dead is commonplace and I'm _very_ sensitive to noise.

It's possible that you're inserting them incorrectly, most people do. Roll up the foam, insert while pulling your ear back (!). Hold it in while continuing to hold your ear back for 10-15 seconds, long enough for the foam to expand, and then release. This should result in at least as good of a block as you can get with your fingers. Note that there shouldn't be any foam protruding from your ear -- if your head on a pillow feels like it's pressing on the earplug, it's not in far enough.

[anonymoose456]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the key understanding for me went even slightly further than that. I don't know exactly how safe it is either, but apparently you need to actually get the foam earplug somewhat into the outer ear canal itself if you really want to block out sound? Especially if you're not supposed to see the foam protruding from the ear, looking straight on.

And not just smoosh it up enough around the outside of the opening as if it were a foam finger held in place by the ear's outer cartilagey bits. So far so good anyway. But make sure you can easily pull it out again in any case.

I don't go around sticking Q-tips into my ear canals either, but at least I don't see a foam earplug being able to reach my eardrums. However, they could both push wax back further into the ear and potentially cause damage? May be a remote cause for concern anyway.

I've also known about having to roll it and pull the ear back, but I still found it rather difficult. Maybe it's not the totally correct way, but I've found rolling it and then pinching the sides a bit allows me to get it in at just the right angle, maybe a bit like an arrow, instead of just bending the tip around outside.

Took some experimenting.