Pottery Barn Studio dish by Barbara Eigen: 230 ppm Lead on the food surface. 90 ppm (& up) is considered too much in items intended for use by kids.

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.

#1.) Food surface of dish

Lead (Pb): 230 +/- 9 ppm
Chromium (Cr): 770 +/- 148 ppm
Manganese (Mn): 364 +/- 88 ppm
Iron (Fe): 1,184 +/- 63 ppm
Nickel (Ni): 1,431 +/- 46 ppm
Copper (Cu): 263 +/- 18 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 3,584 +/- 54 ppm
Zirconium (Zr): 15,200 +/- 200 ppm
Tin (Sn): 248 +/- 7 ppm
Barium (Ba): 3,043 +/- 51 ppm
Platinum (Pt): 153 +/- 21 ppm

#2.) Back of dish (by logo)

Lead (Pb): 404 +/- 12 ppm
Chromium (Cr): 755 +/- 142 ppm
Vanadium (V): 1,247 +/- 422
Manganese (Mn): 565 +/- 86 ppm
Iron (Fe): 1,383 +/- 63 ppm
Cobalt (Co): 80 +/- 24 ppm
Nickel (Ni): 1,483 +/- 45 ppm
Copper (Cu): 278 +/- 17 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 3,300 +/- 49 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 4,154+/- 825 ppm
Zirconium (Zr): 11,900 +/- 100 ppm
Tin (Sn): 256 +/- 6 ppm
Barium (Ba): 2,275 +/- 37 ppm
Platinum (Pt): 140 +/- 19 ppm

How much Lead is “too much” Lead?

For context, the amount of Lead that is considered unsafe in an item intended for use by children is anything 90 ppm Lead or higher in the paint, glaze or coating of an item or anything 100 ppm Lead or higher in the substrate. Unfortunately (as discussed in many articles here on the Lead Safe Mama website) there is no law limiting total (XRF-detectable) Lead content in dishes or cookware (or really in any consumer goods not expressly “intended for use by children”.)

Some additional reading that may be of interest:

As always, thank you for reading and for sharing these posts. 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.

Tamara Rubin
Owner – Lead Safe Mama, LLC
#LeadSafeMama