Have you found a ring that you love but it’s just a little too big and cannot be sized down enough without ruining it?
Did you have an event in your life that resulted in weight loss and your rings are too loose to wear?
We all find out sooner or later that our fingers swell and shrink with temperature changes, weight gain or loss, or from the foods we eat.
We probably figured out that having a ring sized each time this happens is not practical too.
You can only size a ring two or three times at most, and then it becomes too weakened as a result of the metal expansion and contraction.
If you absolutely could guarantee that you will never gain or lose enough weight, never swell up and down from exercise or eating salty foods, or never get cold enough to make a ring sizing necessary, that would be great.
But none of us can.
There have got to be ways to deal with this dilemma without taking our rings to the jewelry store each time we find our rings twirling around for days on end on our finger or falling off while taking a shower.
In this blog post, we will discuss three ways to make a ring smaller at home without having to go through the hassle of resizing.
So whether your ring is too loose or too tight, these methods should help you get it to fit perfectly!
Table of Contents
How To Know If Your Ring Is Too Big
You can be sure that your ring is too big if it is spinning, feels like it is about to fall off if you simply wash your hands with soap, or it flops over from side to side as if it were top heavy.
- Rings should go on the finger snuggly, come off with a bit of resistance, and otherwise not be rotating or flopping around every time you move your hands.
- Rings should not be flying off on their own accord while you shower or wash dishes, nor when you stick your hands into a pocket and then pull them out leaving the ring behind.
That is pretty much how you know that your ring is too big…it is a worrisome feeling in the back of your mind if nothing else, and can cause you to actually lose the ring if you are not careful.
3 Ways To Make Your Ring Smaller At Home
So to combat this, there are a few things you can do to make your ring smaller without taking it to a professional or ruining the band. These are not listed according to rank or review results.
You might want to buy all three due to them being very inexpensive, and try out which will work best for you.
Snuggies
These are plastic “tubes” with a slit in them.
They fit most ring widths, so if you have a wide band, it will work.
You open the slit just enough to slide the shank of your ring into the tube.
The slit closes by itself because of the tubular shape.
These work much the same way as the metal sizing bars do in our discussion below, yet without having to take your ring to someone to install it.
The drawback of these is that they will become loose over time and wear until the slit opens up and will not close again. Our other complaint is that they do not contour to the shape of a finger, they are straight across rather than an oval shape.
Last complaint is that the edges of them can rub against other fingers next to it.
Other than that, they work until you can figure out what else you want to try…which brings you to the next one:
Ring Size Adjuster
These are great and are made from silicone that look like an old fashioned stretchy telephone cord. You open an end and wind the “coil” around and around the shank, then cut it.
They can fit shanks that are a very thin width to shanks that measure 6mm wide or more. They are clear so that no one would notice them unless you point them out to them.
The closer you wrap the coils together, the more snug your ring will be.
If you wrap the coils farther apart, then the downsizing will be less. You get to play around with it to figure out what works for your needs.
Unless you know that you have an allergy to silicone, these are fantastic.
Invisible Ring Sizer
These are nylon ring adjusters that fit inside your shank.
They are clear and look very much like a bottom lip when you smile.
75% of people who use them are happy with them as they can be used for both men’s and women’s rings as the other can be, and the only complaint seems to be that they might not work with comfort fit wide bands because the shape of the shank is not flush.
Since they are not glued on, they depend on you choosing from the 8 different sizes to put on the shank.
These can adjust your ring size from ½ size down to a full 2 sizes down.
Other Ways To Make Your Ring Smaller
If you have decided over time that you are pretty much finished with adjusting your rings at home because your fingers are staying within the same size, you may want to go for a different solution that does not include sizing the rings themselves, but instead, adding some inserts that you do not have to mess with on a daily basis.
Here, you will need the help of a goldsmith:
Sizing Beads
These little balls can be made pretty much any size that you want, up to the width of the shank of your ring.
If you have a 4mm wide ring shank, then you can have sizing beads made the same size.
Typically, these beads are soldered into the inside of the ring shank at 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock so that your fingers are in between them and you will not feel them.
If they were set differently, then you would notice.
The advantage to these is that you will automatically stop your ring from spinning and also your ring will be a half size smaller without cutting and permanently sizing it.
You can have the beads removed if need be, and you can even have two additional beads set up under the top of the ring at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock.
If there is space up under the top of the ring, you can even use larger beads.
Ring Inserts
There are two kinds of ring inserts.
One is a horseshoe shaped insert that is actually a spring ring.
It is soldered inside the shank at the bottom by a goldsmith.
The sides of the horseshoe will give you one to one and a half sizes smaller depending on how it is adjusted on each side of the ring.
You simply slip the ring onto your finger and the tension of each side of the spring will do the rest without you even noticing it is there.
It is like putting a half ring inside of a ring.
The other type of insert is a metal bar that is wrapped around the shank of the ring on both sides.
This will need to be done at the jewelry store too, as it requires special pliers to make sure it is comfortable.
These are not expensive and can easily be removed by unwinding the sides that were wrapped onto the shank. The bar in the middle is the way it tightens the ring against your finger and can be adjusted if need be.
All you do is take a screwdriver or a knife and push up on the bar or push down on it and you can adjust it yourself.
Final Thoughts
Thankfully there are a few ways how to make a ring smaller without resizing it.
Each has their own advantages and disadvantages, but all are definitely doable at home with little to no professional help.
Our recommendation would be to start with the home remedies first because you will then see over time if there is really a permanent need to have your ring resized.
Meanwhile, taking these steps should ensure that your ring will not fall off and that you can still wear and enjoy it.