Amethyst Tree: 122 ppm Lead and 28 ppm Arsenic, this is not a toy for babies & toxicants are just one reason why.

Posted: Saturday, March 14, 2020

Introduction: Tamara Rubin is an independent advocate for consumer goods safety, and she is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children. She began testing consumer goods for toxicants in 2009 and was the parent-advocate responsible for finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys in 2017. She uses high-precision XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for contaminants including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic. [bio link]

“Harmonize” Amethyst Tree – sold on Amazon:

I decided to test this tree after I saw the video of Kylie Jenner giving a similar tree to her baby (Stormi) to play with. Items like this are not toys and, as such, they are not at all regulated for the presence of toxicants and should not be given to babies to play with. Most new mothers are not aware of the potential toxicant concerns for items like this, and it is not surprising to see a young mother giving an item like this to her child to play with.

But is this really a lot of Lead and Arsenic?

Even though the levels are fairly low – the fact that the tree tested positive for both Lead and Arsenic is quite concerning, especially knowing a baby was playing with it. This item is also concerning as the toxicants are specifically present in the finish on the wood base of the tree. Trace level toxicants found in paint and finishes are more likely to be bioavailable than trace level toxicants bound in metal or ceramic.

To Kylie (or any member of her family!):

If you are reading this post I would love to come to your home and test your things to make sure they are safe for all of your babies! The full XRF test results of the tree pictured are below (so please scroll down). To my regular readers: Here are links to some additional reading that may be of interest based on your interest in the test results of this item:

Stay Safe Out There!
A quick note from Tamara

Hey readers – I hope you are staying well out there with all that is going on in the world right now. I’m hanging out mostly at home with my children – and have been doing so for about 10 days now. I pulled them out of school over a week ago – just to be safe. Each of my three youngest sons have compromised immune systems (which manifests in different ways for each of them), due to having been Lead-poisoned as babies.

In between kid-wrangling I am working hard to publish literally HUNDREDS of new posts (with test results for various consumer goods I have tested over the past couple of years, but have not yet had a moment to report on!). These posts have created a backlog in my system for more than a year now – and it’s actually nice to have a *break* with some time to catch up! To make this happen as quickly as possible, I am (as with this post) simply posting the images and the test results – without a lot of additional information. [Do not worry — I will continue to update them with more information as I get caught up and begin to have the time!]

For those new to my website, please check out the menu in the header of the website for more information about how I test things (and my background, etc.) On each post you can also click on any of the keyword tabs at the top of the post to find more items in that category. Here’s the post discussing the type of testing I do, and the specific instrument I use to detect, analyze and confirm metals content, and ultimately produce the resultant data for each item reported here – link.

Please Note: Test results reported below are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Test results reported here are from tests that were done for a minimum of 60 seconds each, and repeated multiple times, to confirm the results. As with all the testing reported here on my blog, a freshly-calibrated high-precision XRF instrument testing in Consumer Goods mode was used to test the item pictured here.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts!

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

Test results for the Harmonize brand natural amethyst tree pictured on this post:

Yellowish bottom of wood base:

Lead (Pb): 93 +/- 8 ppm Lead
Arsenic (As): 11 +/- 6 ppm
Chlorine (Cl): 812 +/- 242 ppm

Yellowish bottom of wood base, reading two:

Lead (Pb): 86 +/- 13 ppm Lead
Arsenic (As): 28 +/- 10 ppm
Chlorine (Cl): 859 +/- 364 ppm

Side of wood base:

Lead (Pb): 105 +/- 16 ppm Lead
Iron (Fe): 82 +/- 45 ppm
Chlorine (Cl): 1,257 +/- 426 ppm

Side of wood base, reading two:

Lead (Pb): 122 +/- 18 ppm Lead
Bromine (Br): 10 +/- 4 ppm
Iron (Fe): 210 +/- 57 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 64 +/- 27 ppm
Chlorine (Cl): 872 +/- 376 ppm

Metal trunk:

Bromine (Br): 522 +/- 107 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 194,800 +/- 4,100 ppm
Iron (Fe): 796,300 +/- 4,300 ppm
Chromium (Cr): 261 +/- 154 ppm
Cobalt (Co): 3,585 +/- 2,259 ppm
Manganese (Mn): 2,604 +/- 905 ppm

Amethysts (note, readings also pick up wire in background):

Zinc (Zn): 365 +/- 60 ppm
Iron (Fe): 4,381 +/- 463 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 105 +/- 48 ppm