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 depending on their position. For instance, there’s a point near the inner flap to aid with digestion and another near the top for stress. Once secured, they evoke both the edge of Maria Tash piercings and ’90s star-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 affi nity.) But lately, stickermania has extended well beyond those of us who harbour a nostalgia for decor that once covered the insides of our lockers or the bottoms of our skateboards.