#AskTamara: Are my kids’ crayons toxic? Which brand of crayons is safe? Crayola? Filana? Stockmar? Honey Sticks?

 

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For those new to the Lead Safe Mama website:

Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her four sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005).

• Tamara owns and runs Lead Safe Mama, LLC — a unique community collaborative woman-owned small business for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety.
• Since 2009, Tamara has been conducting XRF testing (a scientific testing method) using the exact instrumentation employed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic).
• Since July of 2022, the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC has been responsible for 5 product recalls (FDA and CPSC).
• All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable.
• Items that Lead Safe Mama, LLC reports on are tested multiple times to confirm the results published (for each component tested).
• Recent notable press… There has been too much to mention already in 2024! Please check out our press page to see some of the amazing coverage of our work so far this year!

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#AskTamara —

Question: Are my kids’ crayons toxic? Which brand of crayons is safe?

Answer: Yes, it is very possible that one or more crayons in your child’s crayon box contain some detectable level of heavy metals when tested with an XRF instrument.

In fact — while I have not tested all brands (I have only tested samples from five different crayon product brands) — I haven’t yet found and tested a crayon brand that I can whole-heartedly recommend, and as a result, I don’t let young children in my home play with any brand of crayons and haven’t for many years. (Specifically young children like babies and toddlers with any hand-to-mouth behavio,r or even older children with a potential for pica.)

About five years ago (c. 2013), when I was working with a nonprofit for childhood Lead poisoning prevention, I found many sets of newly purchased crayons to have at least one color that tested positive for trace levels of heavy metals when tested with an XRF instrument.

Crayon brands I have tested (click the brand name to read the full test results for a crayon set from that brand):  Stockmar • Crayola • Filana • Honey Sticks •

Read more about XRF testing here.
To see more consumer goods I have tested with an XRF instrument, click here.

The levels I have found in crayons to date have usually been in the single or double-digit parts per million (ppm). These levels were within all safety standards for toys intended for use by children, even the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) standards implemented and made enforceable beginning in 2008, through 2010, and later. (The enforcement and standards for this act were tiered, as different industries were given time to comply with the new standards.)

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Since that time, I have tested many many more sets of crayons with essentially the same results — depending on the specific colors in a set, one or more color in the set has some level (considered safe/ trace level) of a toxicant (Lead, mercury, cadmium or arsenic).

The problem with these standards when applied to crayons is that only toy standards apply. In my opinion, crayons (because of the frequency with which they are ingested by the specific demographic targeted for their use) should be regulated by the much stricter standards used for FOOD toxicity safety — not toys.

Food toxicity standards for Lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic (and other toxicants) are generally measured in single or double digit parts per BILLION not parts per MILLION. One part per million is equal to one thousand (1,000) parts per billion.

As an example, toys are considered Lead-toxic if they have 90 parts per million (ppm) Lead or more in the paint or coating; however, drinking water is considered unsafe (by many scientists) if the Lead (Pb) level is 5 parts per billion (ppb) or more (with the United States federal standard for Lead-in-water toxicity being 15 ppb and above).

The 2017 Crayola Crayons (pictured below) were tested with an XRF instrument and three of the colors tested positive for trace levels cadmium. Cadmium is considered toxic in children’s items at levels of 40 parts per million and above.

The level of cadmium found in the crayons pictured below (25 +/- 6 ppm, 27 +/- 7 ppm, and 18 +/- 6 ppm cadmium, respectively — as shown in the photo) is not considered unsafe by current standards set for toys. If you applied food safety standards to these crayons, however, they would likely be considered VERY TOXIC.

Please note: I am NOT just talking about regular crayons. I have found toxicants (like Lead and more frequently cadmium, even mercury!) in ALL TYPES of crayons intended for children — including products marketed as “food-based” or “food-grade” (for example, beeswax-based “organic,” “all natural” type crayon products). It is for this reason that I discourage the use of crayons — and chalk, for that matter. If I do buy chalk I generally stick with Ikea — as their chalk is much less likely to have unsafe levels of heavy metals.

#SaferChoices: For young children, there are a lot of great non-toxic finger paint options, and instead of crayons, I favor the early use of pencils and colored pencils (which are much less likely to be ingested than crayons)!

Check out my back to school shopping guide, here.

Point to note: Years ago, when I first discovered the concern for toxicants in otherwise “safe” crayons, the XRF that I was using was loaned to me by the manufacturer of the specific XRF instrument I was using at the time. Upon publishing my findings about toxicants found in crayons, the XRF manufacturing company specifically asked me to retract (and unpublish) my findings on crayons saying they felt the results were inaccurate. They also said that if I did not unpublish my findings, they would no longer grant me free use of the instrument.

In response, I told them that I had tested each crayon multiple times with a freshly-calibrated instrument for a duration of up to three minutes per test and explained how results were consistent, replicable, and therefore valid — so I stood by them. However…

… given my work was Lead-focused (and not cadmium or mercury-focused), and given the instrument was crucial to my advocacy work, I did take down the article at the time and set aside all of the crayons I had tested/ included in the post with the intention of eventually having them tested by a lab that tests food products (to more formally confirm or refute my findings).

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to send those crayons to a lab for testing (lab testing is very expensive and I never found a sponsor interested in covering the cost for each of the colors in a box!).

I later learned that the crayons I had tested at the time were made by a company that was also a customer of the company that made the XRF instrument — and I can only assume that pressure was put on the instrument manufacturer by the crayon manufacturer in asking me to take down my post.

Now that I answer to no one… Here’s the post! (Sorry it took so long for me to share this information with y’all again! I’ve been a wee bit busy.) 😉

And for the record, I would love to test more crayons (all types, all brands) and I would also love to have a sponsor jump in and help cover some independent lab testing to confirm any trace toxicant levels we find with an XRF instrument.

Here’s a crayon wishlist on Amazon if you want to buy a set of crayons and have them sent to me for XRF testing (to help this inquiry).

In the meantime, my advice is to avoid crayons and stick with non-toxic European art supplies whenever possible.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading and following. The most important thing you can do to support my independent consumer goods testing and Lead poisoning prevention advocacy work is share these articles and results with your friends on social media. The second most important thing would be to donate in support of this work if you are in a position to help in that way! Thank you.

Here’s the direct Lead Safe Mama, LLC “chip-in” link.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

Note: XRF detection limits for consumer goods (when using an instrument specifically designed for testing consumer goods with the appropriate software module) is down to the level of single digit parts per million (ppm). A “non-detect” (or negative/ND) with an XRF instrument could still allow for the possibility that a crayon (or any other consumer good) is positive for Lead in ppb (parts per billion). So the crayons in the lower half of the photo with the caption “Below this line; NO lead, cadmium or mercury” are only negative/ND within the testing capacity of the XRF and could technically still be positive for those limits in ppb (as is the case with all items I test and report XRF test results for).