Introduction:
Tamara Rubin is a federal-award-winning independent advocate for consumer goods safety and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children, her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005. Since 2009 Tamara has been using XRF testing (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.
Posted: Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Dritz purple “Fun Measuring Tape” purchased at Blick Art Supplies (2020):
The full XRF test results of the measuring tape pictured are below (so please scroll down). The bizarre thing is that this tape tested negative for Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Arsenic, and Antimony — even though it has a warning printed on the paper packaging stating that it has Lead! This is likely just a CYA (“Cover Your Ass”) statement from the manufacturer because they know these items *can* test positive and they don’t want to bother with the expense of testing every single batch!
Here are links to some additional reading that may be of interest, based on your interest in the test results of this item:
- Click here to see more vinyl measuring tapes I have tested.
- Click here to see more vinyl items I have tested in general.
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 has 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 metal 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 website, 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 purple Dritz brand “Fun Tape Measure” pictured on this post:
Reading one (on #8):
- Tin (Sn): 78 +/- 34 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 383 +/- 94 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 134 +/- 77 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 399 +/- 189 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 14,900 +/- 700 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 266,900 +/- 7,700 ppm
Reading two (on the metal end):
- Tin (Sn): 8,497 +/- 619 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 815,600 +/- 54,000 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 251 +/- 92 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 27,800 +/- 4,700 ppm
Hi Tamara,
Is there any concern that the XRF reading might be wrong and it’s not detecting lead that is present?
Thanks for your hard work!
Kristina
Nope – I did probably 20 tests to confirm. It’s absolutely Lead-free, with a margin of error of very low single digit parts per million.
T
Thank you for finding a measuring tape that is safe! I sew so I didn’t know what I should use for a measuring tape after seeing all the ones with lead! I’m going to order this!