Happy Toxic Easter? Yikes!! 1977 Avon Easter Perfume pin: 6,759 ppm Lead (90 is unsafe) + 6,018 Cadmium (75 is unsafe)

For those new to this 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 sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic). All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Items are tested multiple times to confirm the test results for each component tested. Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

The amount of Lead considered toxic in a newly manufactured item intended for use by children today is anything 90 ppm Lead or higher in the paint or coating, and anything 100 ppm Lead or higher in the substrate.

Modern consumer goods are considered unsafe and illegal in the country of Denmark if they have Cadmium levels at 75 ppm or higher. In Washington State, the hazard level for total Cadmium content is 40 ppm or higher. There is no United States federal hazard level for total Cadmium content as detectable with an XRF instrument.

Vintage items (especially vintage plastic items and vintage jewelry — or costume jewelry in general) often contain very high levels of Lead and Cadmium (sometimes Arsenic and Mercury, too) and (in the absence of testing every specific piece in your collection, which can be a very expensive proposition!) should never be given to children to play with.

I am almost 50 years old, and I clearly remember playing with these plastic perfume pins as a child (I was born in 1969 and this particular pin is from 1977). Many friends my age are now grandmothers (!) who have held onto things from their childhood to pass along to their children, ultimately for their grandchildren to later play with. Please think twice before doing this; most vintage items are decidedly not safe for children to play with — it literally takes just a microscopic amount of Lead to poison a child.

But I played with these and I’m fine! (Click to read my response to that common refrain.)

When tested with an XRF instrument (the same instrument the Consumer Product Safety Commission [CPSC] uses to determine if items are safe for children to use), this 1977 vintage Avon “Fragrance Glacé” perfume Easter egg pin had the following readings (with a 60-second test):

A focus on the yellow plastic area:

Lead (Pb): 381 +/- 16 ppm
Cadmium (Cd): 6,018 +/- 76 ppm
Barium (Ba): 932 +/- 111 ppm
Bromine (Br): 10 +/- 2 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 1,347 +/- 30 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 364 +/- 242 ppm
If a metal is not listed, it was not detected by the XRF (unless otherwise noted, all testing done on this site is in “Consumer Goods” mode).

Focused on the purple plastic area (back):