White Pottery Barn Plate; hand crafted in Portugal.
When tested with an XRF instrument this white glazed ceramic plate came in at levels as high as 363 ppm Lead.
Dishes are not considered “items intended for use by children”…
For context, the amount of Lead that is considered illegal (and unsafe) in anything manufactured today that is intended to be used by children is 90 ppm Lead (and up) in the paint, glaze or coating and 100 ppm (and up) in the substrate (that would be the unglazed base ceramic of a dish like this.) The loophole to this legislation (the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) is dishes. Dishes are not considered to be “items intended for use by children” and so are not regulated for total Lead content (as detectable with an XRF instrument.) You can read more about that here.
Do your children use dishes? Mine certainly do! As a result it is my personal and professional opinion that the presence of heavy metal toxicants (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium and Arsenic, etc.) in dishes should be regulated to comply with the same strict limits (for XRF detectable total content) that are applied to items intended for use by children.
The myth that “white dishes are more likely to be Lead-free”…
There is a myth out there in the lead poisoning prevention community that WHITE ceramics are less likely to have lead. This is simply not true. I have tested hundreds of white ceramic pieces over the years and they have had varying degrees of lead (some as high as 30% Lead!) Click here to see more examples of white ceramics and their various lead levels.
Is this a Pottery Barn problem? or a “Made in Portugal” problem?
Yes. Pottery Barn (as a brand) has had a solid track record (in my personal experience testing their products) of items testing positive for at least some level of Lead (some with very high levels of Lead!) When I see a Pottery Barn piece I almost always assume it will likely be Leaded. The same goes for “Made in Portugal” decorative and functional ceramics – they are almost always very high Lead. To see more Pottery Barn items I have tested, click here. To see more “Made in Portugal” items I have tested, click here.
WHAT! It’s in everything!
Pottery Barn Ceramics!?, White Ceramics!? Portugese Ceramics?!
Is anything Lead-free?
There are dozens (and possibly hundreds – maybe even thousands!) of Lead-free dishware choices out there. To see the #LeadFree dishes I use in my home, click here. My dishes are plain white glass plates with embossed (not painted) decorative elements. You can use the search-bar on this site to look up “Lead Free Dishes” (or other similar search terms) and you will find many examples here on the blog. You can also start your search with the Index for the site by clicking here (the index starts with a list of links to Lead-free items I have tested!)
For more #SaferChoices for your family, click here.
To make a contribution in support of my independent consumer goods testing and lead poisoning prevention advocacy work, click here.
Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
How do you know that this is not As? If you are using the handheld XRF, it may not be sensitive enough to differentiate between the Pb L-lines and the As K-alpha line. You also need to report on As and Sb since they are also toxic.
The Niton XL3T and XL3T GOLDD+ are really solid in their capacity to test for lead from my understanding. I have not heard anything to the contrary. This is an advocacy website about lead, so I generally only share the lead results (with a few exceptions.) I am not a lab. My children have brain damage from being poisoned 12 years ago.
Not that big of a concern to Potter Barn. Sorry about your children but they did not get poisoned by lead glaze on dishes? They were poisoned by lead paint from the 1970’s. That is sad but that is a whole different level of toxicity that is caused by lead in glaze. You fight needs to be about lead in paint and old homes. Keep on fighting about the paint in homes.
I have the California Ivy poppytrail dishes and wonderered if they have lead in them?
Hi Tamara,
I just bought 12 place setting of Pottery Barn Emma dinnerware. I finally found your sight and saw that this set of dishes has high amounts of lead in it. I’m sooooo disappointed because I have been looking for a nice set of dishes because our 40 year old Royal Daulton Kingswood set of dishes is loosing its glaze and I’m sure it has lead in the flowers.
Can you confirm that it is the Emma pattern that has the lead in it please.
Thank you Tamara. I’m really enjoying your site.
Cindy
Hi Cindy,
Thank you for commenting.
I have only tested the Emma glass that I am aware of (and I don’t know if that glass is Pottery Barn or not) so I have no idea of new Emma dinnerware by Pottery Barn is Lead-free or if it has Lead. If you want to send me a picture I can let you know if I may have tested it. Here’s the Emma glass that I tested: https://tamararubin.com/2018/07/leadfree-lambert-drinking-glass-emma-style/
Tamara
Hi Tamara.
I can’t seem to forward the picture to you. It will let me send you a text with the picture in it if you want to private message me your cell number.
Do you think the image in this post is an “Emma” plate? It doesn’t have that in the markings. Let me know. Thanks!
I bought food Network white dishes. Safe?
I don’t believe I have tested any of those yet.
Tamara
https://tamararubin.com/2017/03/food-net/ – I have only tested this silverware from Food Network
Hi! I was recently looking on Pottery Barn website and they have a whole section of lead-free dishes now. Do you know if those are truly lead-free, or perhaps there are still trace amounts in those as well?
I am so upset to find out about my dishes from Pottery Barn contain lead. They aren’t cheap by any means. So disappointed.
If the plates are sold in California and do not have a Proposition 65 warning label, could I assume those are safe? Or no, companies are not following this law? Thank you for your work!