Stuck on You

Once applied primarily to adolescent totems, stickers for wellness!are growing up.

- Michelle Ruiz.

When the plane lurched violently in the middle of a cross-country flight, I clutched the armrest with one hand. With the other, I reached for my ear. Days earlier, wielding an oversized pair of tweezers, an acupuncturist at New York City’s WTHN clinic had affixed a constellation of tiny crystals to my outer ear. In a quiet, dimly lit room I felt a pleasing sensation when the crystals—each about the size of a large stud—were pressed against my skin. The seeds, as the crystals are called, are intended to stimulate the brain to send various signals to the body when positioned: There’s a point near the inner flap to aid with digestion and another near the top for stress. Once secured, they evoke shaped stick-on earrings. Midair, in heavy turbulence, however, pressing them serves a single purpose: calming me over the Rocky Mountains. 

I’m a lifelong sticker enthusiast, from validating gold stars to satisfying scratch-and-sniffs. My children mock me, but Hello Kitty stickers still adorn my laptop and birthday cards, as evocative to me as a tube of Bonne Bell Lip Smackers. (When I saw that Olivia Rodrigo had decorated her face with clusters of stickers for the cover of her debut album, Sour, I felt a kind of spiritual affinity.) But lately, sticker mania has extended well beyond those of us who harbor a nostalgia for decor that once covered the insides of our lockers or the bottoms of our skateboards.