How to Stretch or Shrink Silicone Ring? – (Answered)!

Silicone rings are a staple of modern life. Unlike traditional metal rings though, resizing them remains uncommon knowledge.

With a lot of home fixes out there it is important to know what is and isn’t possible.

Silicone rings cannot be resized by any normal means. It is impossible to have silicone shrink on its own without it being cast with additives. However, over time a silicone ring may stretch out due to usage. Silicone is durable, meaning it can be difficult to change its size after being created.

We are going to start by talking a little bit about the properties of silicone. Then we will go into ways to resize your ring.

What is Silicone?

There are many different kinds of silicone.

Silicone rings are made of silicone rubber, a compound made of silicon, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.

It is considered an elastomer, which basically means it’s stretchy and doesn’t damage easily. This is why it doesn’t deform very easily.

Silicone rubber can be stretched temporarily with some force, but will always return to its original form.

Well, mostly. Over time, and with repeated stretching, a silicone ring can be made larger. We will address that in a later section though.

Silicone rubber is very durable because of how its chains line up. The chains of polymers are held together weakly and bunched together.

Think of a towel that is bunched into a ball. The towel is actually much longer than the ball is, but will only be its true length after it is stretched out.

This is why silicone rings stretch so easily. Their chains are all bunched up.

So, why do they spring back after being stretched?

Well, all of these chains sort of wrap around each other. Meaning that the chains are all linked together in a certain way when the silicone is cast.

These chains like to stay wrapped around each other in their original form. That’s why they shrink to their original size.

Over time though, these intersections can slip and change. That is why it is possible for silicone rings to slowly stretch out.

This is also why they don’t shrink. These chains only get looser. They don’t like to get tighter. 

How To Stretch Silicone Ring – (Does Silicone Stretch)

With that in mind, stretching a silicone ring is fairly easy. All you have to do is play with your silicone a lot.

How fast it stretches out depends on the quality of silicone used in casting. The poorer the quality the faster it will stretch out.

Some high-quality silicone rings will take a long time to stretch out. So long that it might be more worth it to buy a larger ring than to wait.

That’s up to you though. So let’s go over the ways to stretch out that ring.

The first thing you can do is play with it all the time. Twist it on your finger. Pull it off and put it on.

Fidget with it. Squeeze it. Just play with your silicone ring all the time. The more you play with your ring, the faster it will stretch out. 

You can also take it off. With the ring off of your finger, you can do all sorts of things to stretch it out.

Fold it inside out, put it on two fingers, and play with it like a rubber band. If you want to stretch it out, do anything that stretches it out.

Exercise a little caution though. If you do too much too fast then you risk breaking it.

Silicone rubber is very resilient though, so you would have to be trying to break it if it was going to snap. 

How To Shrink Silicone Ring

A lot of people ask this question; can you shrink silicone rings?

Unfortunately, there are no ways to shrink your silicone ring without physically altering it.

Some people claim that silicone bands shrink back to normal if heated up. This does not work.

For silicone to be reduced down in any form it needs to be granulated and then added to a new silicone form.

So heating it to shrink the silicone ring doesn’t really work. With that in mind, we’re going to go through some ways to reduce the size that will actually work.

The most common practice is to cut the ring.

To do this, you will need to know the diameter of your finger. You can do this with a caliper or measuring tape. So first cut your ring.

If you used the calipers then all you have to do is shape the cut ring into a smaller ring until it is the same size as the caliper reading.

Then you cut off the extra silicone. Tape or glue the ends together.

If you used the measuring tape then mark the circumference of your finger on the measuring tape.

Then take your ring and lay it out in a line. cut off anything that lays beyond the mark of your measuring tape. Then tape or glue the ends together.

Doing either of these will damage your ring and may fail easily depending on the type of glue or tape you used.

The other common way to shrink your ring’s size is to just use glue.

This is relatively simple compared to cutting your ring and doesn’t leave an undesirable mark on the outside of your ring.

All you need to do this is strong adhesive glue. If you don’t want anyone to notice then use clear glue. Hot glue would even work.

Take your ring and glue the inside. It’s easier if you only do one portion of the inside.

If you want to challenge yourself or want the inside to feel the same then you can glue the entire inside.

Doing it that way though does make it easier to undersize your ring too much. So be careful.

There is a variant of this method that uses dental floss. Some people claim that the floss helps the glue adhere better.

This is strictly anecdotal. That doesn’t mean it won’t work though.

The method for this is the same, but before you glue, you wrap a lot of dental floss around the ring.

In closing, silicone rings can’t shrink without actively altering the ring itself; they will slowly stretch, though. These rings are very resilient, and so do not alter easily.

Frequently Asked Questions