A really interesting article was brought to my attention this week about the presence of dangerous chemicals in some high street costume jewellery. American scientists at the Ecology Centre have recently tested ninety nine items from well known shops such as Claire’s, Forever 21 and H & M and other U.S retailers.
Lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury and arsenic among other highly toxic chemicals, were detected in over half the pieces tested. I wasn’t sure of the implications to the wearer exposed to these nasty sounding chemicals so I went in search of more information. What I discovered was really scary. These chemicals have been linked to health issues such as liver toxicity, cancer, birth defects and acute allergies.
Of the pieces tested 25% had lead levels which exceed the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s limit of lead allowed in the production of children’s products. In fact many of the items that were labelled lead free were in fact made entirely of lead!
As far as I am aware in Europe we have stricter laws in relation to the use of chemicals in children’s products. I plan to do more research into this so will let ye know what I find out.
For the time being I think I’ll be sticking to silver!