How to Get an Earring Out of the Sink

If you've ever dropped something down the bathroom sink and lost it in the drain, you're not alone. The sides of a sink are so smooth that anything that gets inadvertently tapped into the basin automatically heads for the drain, and something small like an earring is bound to disappear, even if the sink has a grate or a partially closed stopper.

When you see the earring fall and watch it go down the drain, you're in a better position than you'd be if the accident happened when you weren't there. You have more control over what happens next, which should be turning off the water and keeping it off until you recover the earring from the P-trap. You can do this by reaching into the drain or disassembling the trap.

The plumbers who invented the P-Trap in the 19th century probably didn't have jewelry recovery on their minds, but P-traps are great at catching and holding small objects, such as earrings. All paths from the sink lead to the trap, so if your ring fell in an overflow tube, the trap is where it will go. A pool of water sits permanently in the inverted "P" to block sewer gases, and that pool is where you'll find your jewelry, as long as it hasn't been flushed away by a strong flow of water.

Ultimately, you may have to disassemble the trap to recover your earring, but before you do that, you could try recovering it directly from the drain opening using some kind of long implement. If the sink has a stopper, you'll have to remove it. Here's how:

1. Go under the sink, locate the drain tailpiece and reach behind it to locate the stopper lever.
2. Unscrew the nut on the tailpiece that's holding the lever in place. You should be able to do this by hand.
3. Pull the lever back until it disengages with the stopper.
4. Lift the stopper out of the drain.

You can now try to retrieve the earring with a telescoping magnet. This often works with gold and silver earrings because they aren't actually pure gold or silver, but gold- or silver-plated steel, and steel is magnetic.

Alternatively, try retrieving the earring with a Zip-It tool, which is a long, barbed length of plastic used for clearing drain clogs. The barbs may hook onto the earring as you fish the tool around the bottom of the P-trap.

All household drains have P-traps, but they aren't equally accessible. When you can't recover your jewelry by reaching into the drain, you have to disassemble the P-trap, and that's easier for a sink than a bathtub or shower. The sink P-trap is right under the sink, and here's how you disassemble it:

1. Put a bucket underneath the trap to catch anything that falls out.
2. Loosen the compression nut on both ends of the curved piece of pipe that holds the water.
3. Pull the trap gently away from the other pipes, then invert it and let all the water spill into the bucket. If you don't see your earring, look inside the trap. It's probably stuck in the mire inside.

Bathtub and shower P-traps are usually hidden under the floor or inside the wall, and they're sealed with glue. You may need a plumber to help you recover your earring if you lose it in the tub.