Brass front of Carhartt clothing brass button: Non-detect (negative) for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Arsenic!

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 XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for contaminants including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic. To read more about the testing methodology employed for the test results reported on this blog, please click this link.

The XRF reading set for the Carhartt button pictured here is below.

Note: The front of the button is a Lead-free brass that is primarily Copper and Zinc. The silver-colored back of the button is made of Aluminum and is positive for a very small amount of Lead, safe by all standards /not at all a concern.

Front of the button:
60-second test

• Lead (Pb): Non-detect / negative
• Cadmium (Cd): Non-detect / negative
• Mercury (Hg): Non-detect / negative
• Bromine (Br): Non-detect / negative
• Chromium (Cr): 91 +/- 49 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 267 +/- 38 ppm
• Nickel (Ni): 88 +/- 42 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 688,700 +/- 700 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 309,200 +/- 600 ppm
• Nb: 849 +/- 36 ppm
• Tin (Sn): 94 +/- 17 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 379 +/- 61 ppm
• Bismuth (Bi): 84 +/- 31 ppm

Back of the button:
60-second test – 6063 Aluminum

• Lead (Pb): 9 +/- 2 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 8 +/- 2 ppm
• Mercury (Hg): Non-detect / negative
• Bromine (Br): Non-detect / negative
• Chromium (Cr): 506 +/- 61 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 1,818 +/- 54 ppm
• Zinc (Zn):1,411 +/- 41 ppm
• Manganese (Mn): 214 +/- 57 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 96 +/- 42 ppm
• Indium (In): 5 +/- 2 ppm
• Tin (Sn): 6 +/- 3 ppm
• Platinum (Pt): 163 +/- 13 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 161 +/- 35 ppm

Thanks for reading. Thank you for sharing my posts. As always – please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment (which may not be right away – but I will try!)

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama