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).
While these are from the 2019 holiday season, my educated guess is that any similar ornaments sold in a tube from the Dollar Tree Stores in future years would have similar readings. I am quite concerned about the amount of Antimony found in these ornaments!
Below are the XRF readings
for each of the ornaments pictured here:
Continue reading below the image.
Red ornament (on sparkles):
Red ornament (on sparkles):- Barium (Ba): 13,100 +/- 4,200 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 105,600 +/- 5,500 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 129,200 +/- 3,400 ppm
- Molybdenum (Mo): 24,800 +/- 1,800 ppm
- Nb: 45,800 +/- 2,100 ppm
- Zirconium (Zr): 6,959 +/- 805 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 3,401 +/- 1,137 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 412,300 +/- 6,000 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 6,062 +/- 1,905 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 33,000 +/- 1,800 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 4,552 +/- 1,296 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 45,300 +/- 4,100 ppm
- Indium (In): 1,771 +/- 883 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 13,000 +/- 3,800 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 140,900 +/- 7,300 ppm
Continue reading below the image.
Green ornament (on sparkles):
Green ornament (on sparkles):- Barium (Ba): 13,100 +/- 3,700 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 65,300 +/- 3,800 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 103,700 +/- 2,800 ppm
- Molybdenum (Mo): 16,200 +/- 1,700 ppm
- Nb: 30,500 +/- 2,100 ppm
- Zirconium (Zr): 4,619 +/- 784 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 3,007 +/- 1,050 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 384,700 +/- 5,400 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 6,685 +/- 2,210 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 28,200 +/- 1,900 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 15,700 +/- 1,900 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 4,880 +/- 2,240
- Iron (Fe): 45,500 +/- 4,700 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 18,400 +/- 3,200 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 251,500 +/- 6,600 ppm
Continue reading below the image.
Gold ornament (on sparkles):
Gold ornament (on sparkles):- Chromium (Cr): 45,300 +/- 5,100 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 133,300 +/- 5,000 ppm
- Molybdenum (Mo): 37,200 +/- 2,900 ppm
- Nb: 87,900 +/- 3,500 ppm
- Zirconium (Zr): 13,200 +/- 1,300 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 5,326 +/- 1,981 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 377,900 +/- 2,988 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 8,077 +/- 2,988 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 34,500 +/- 2,600 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 6,875 +/- 2,089 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 55,500 +/- 6,300 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 16,900 +/- 4,600 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 148,900 +/- 9,000 ppm
Gold colored plastic tops of ornaments:
- Lead (Pb): 57 +/- 26 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 27 +/- 9 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 307 +/- 56 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 674 +/- 43 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 1,459 +/- 72 ppm
- Palladium (Pd): 12 +/- 5 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 290 +/- 52 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 202 +/- 68 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 3,282 +/- 390 ppm
- Indium (In): 34 +/- 13 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 530 +/- 118 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 3,387 +/- 326 ppm
Continue reading below the image.
Some additional reading that may be of interest:
- More Christmas ornaments I have tested.
- More items from the Dollar Stores that I have tested.
- More things with glitter that I have tested.
- An article discussing the testing methodology we use for the results we report on this website.
As always, thank you for reading and for sharing this work. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
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