The Washington Post:

Q-tips are one of the most perplexing things for sale in America. Plenty of consumer products are widely used in ways other than their core function — books for leveling tables, newspapers for keeping fires aflame, seltzer for removing stains, coffee tables for resting legs — but these cotton swabs are distinct. Q-tips are one of the only, if not the only, major consumer products whose main purpose is precisely the one the manufacturer explicitly warns against.

I’m sure I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to using Q-tips in a way that can be harmful but at least I’m not my mother. She’d use bobby pins (kids, ask your grandmother) to “clean” her ears.