IKEA Marius stool with plastic seat and metal legs: 136 ppm Lead & 128 ppm Antimony (considered safe by most standards.)

When tested with a high-precision XRF Instrument, the Ikea Marius stool (black plastic seat with black enameled metal legs) pictured here had the following readings.

Plastic top of stool – 60 seconds:

• Lead (Pb): 136 +/- 13 ppm
• Antimony (Sb): 64 +/- 21 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 2,619 +/- 123 ppm
• Bromine (Br): 216 +/- 9 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 550 +/- 24 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 300 +/- 39 ppm
• Chromium (Cr): 48 +/- 17 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 3,788 +/- 103 ppm
• Chlorine (Cl): 799 +/- 284 ppm

Underside of plastic top of stool – 60 seconds:

• Lead (Pb): 116 +/- 17 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 23 +/- 15 ppm
• Antimony (Sb): 128 +/- 34 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 507 +/- 171 ppm
• Chromium (Cr): 28 +/- 19 ppm
• Bromine (Br): 208 +/- 13 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 469 +/- 34 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 254 +/- 55 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 3,621 +/- 126 ppm
• Chlorine (Cl): 612 +/- 318 ppm

Powder coated metal legs of stool – 60 seconds:

• Barium (Ba): 45,700 +/- 3,200 ppm
• Bromine (Br): 332 +/- 82 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 118,500 +/- 8,500 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 75,000 +/- 5,300 ppm

The levels of Lead, Antimony, and Cadmium found in this stool would be considered to be within safe range by most standards — especially since it was not manufactured or expressly marketed as an item “intended fo use by children” [if it were, then Lead reading would then be above the legal limit]. Even though it is very low Lead, on principle I personally prefer not to knowingly include products with any amount of Lead in my home (whenever possible).

As always, please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them. Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama