The next time you put olive oil in your ear, you are essentially performing a form of lipid therapy —using the body’s own chemical language (sebum-like lipids) to negotiate with a stubborn biological substance. Suggested reading for the curious: Burton, M. J., & Dorée, C. J. (2013). Ear drops for the removal of ear wax. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

The ear canal skin is delicate and dry. Hard wax adheres to it like cement. Olive oil coats both the skin and the wax, reducing the coefficient of friction. This allows the wax to glide outward rather than scrape or stick.

Olive oil is a non-polar lipid. Ear wax is a semi-solid mixture of lipids and keratin. While "like dissolves like" in chemistry, the analogy stops here. Olive oil does not chemically break down the long keratin protein fibers or the crystalline cholesterol esters in cerumen. If it were a true solvent, a few drops would turn wax into a liquid—which it does not. So what does olive oil do? Three things: