How to Remove the Plastic Discs from Your Earring Backs

This is totally random, but it's one of those ridiculously simple discoveries that you make that you just can't help sharing. I thought about saving this post for next week, but I just couldn't wait. This trick is too good to keep to myself!

So I bought a pair of these earrings yesterday and was annoyed that they came with those bullet backs with the pesky plastic discs around them. Annoyed enough that for the first time in eight years (I didn't get my ears pierced until I was in my mid-twenties) I decided to do something about it. Namely, cut off the plastic backs. I always assumed the plastic was glued onto the back, but was shocked when it popped right off after a couple of snips from my scissors. Then I realized I didn't even need to cut the plastic - if you press your thumb firmly against the end of the bullet it will pop right out of the disc, no cutting required.

Seriously. How did I never know this?!

Of course, I had to turn to google to see if I was the last person on the planet to discover this was possible or the discoverer of a really neat trick. Turns out, a girl tweeted about this just at the beginning of last month and apparently lit up the net with her discovery. (See this article on PopSugar for more details.) It seems that lots of people were thrilled to find this out, like I was. Others defended the plastic discs, stating that they protect your earlobes from heavy earrings.

Since I never wear earrings heavy enough to pull at my lobes, I immediately went to town popping the plastic off all the earring backs I had stashed away in a drawer (not sure why I was keeping them since I never wore them, but now I'm glad I did!) and I feel pretty proud that I actually figured this out for myself. (After eight years of earring-wearing and about six weeks too late to take credit on the internet...but still!)

So, I'm dying to find out--did you know this trick for popping the plastic discs off earring backs? If so, do you remove them or leave them on to save your lobes? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!