Aptly named “Fable” pottery sells Lead-contaminated ceramics marketed as Lead-free (some “tea” — aka drama — is developing). Here’s Lead Safe Mama’s email exchange with the owner.
This is an ad-free article.
We are publishing this as an ad-free piece to make it easier to read. If you would like to make a contribution in support of this work (helping us keep our more important and widely-read articles ad-free), click here. Thank you.
For those new to the Lead Safe Mama 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 four sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005).
- Tamara owns and runs Lead Safe Mama, LLC — a unique community collaborative woman-owned small business for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety.
- Since July 2022, the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC has been responsible for six product recalls (FDA and CPSC).
- All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable.
- Please check out our press page to see some of the news coverage of our work, linked here.
First, if you have not yet read the article with our findings on Lead in the Fable-brand ceramicware (marketed and sold as Lead-free), please read that here. After you read that, read my exchange with the owner (so far) today.
Communication I received (via a comment on the original article) from a LeadSafeMama.com Reader
My response to Joe after receiving this communication from N.
The text for this response is below the image of the response (so it is easier for you to read)!
Text of the above response:
Hello Joe
A reader just posted this response you sent to them on my website:
It’s not a problem; I have cancelled your order; expect an email in a few shakes. Just so you know, we are in the process of posting all of the testing we have done (not on a home test kit machine). While I appreciate external bloggers taking a look at our pieces, we too, do rigorous testing on the pieces and of course, are now publishing all results. You’ll see these live on our website in the coming days.
Best,
Joe
Best,
Joe
Please be 100% clear that I am not using a “home test kit machine” – this is not a thing that exists.
I use a Niton XL3T XRF instrument (an instrument that costs about $35,000 when new – with all of the software installed) that is specifically designed for testing for Lead (and other toxicants) in consumer goods. I am trained and certified in using this instrument and have been doing testing using XRF technology since 2009. I even do training in consumer goods testing and other related childhood Lead poisoning prevention topics for health departments, and hospitals (and have even presented at EPA HQ and at national conferences hosted by HUD and the CDC.)
I am not a blogger, I run Lead Safe Mama, LLC – an independent small business that does consumer goods testing for toxicants and childhood Lead poisoning prevention advocacy.
The testing I do is RIGOROUS and SCIENTIFIC and uses the same instrumentation used by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission to screen consumer goods for toxicants.
I have won two awards from the U.S. Federal Government for my work.
Our work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine and The Guardian this year (along with stories about our work in nearly every major news outlet over the course of the past year — related to the product recalls that we worked on.)
Your response to your customer was (relatively) outrageous, sexist, dismissive, and not at all science-based.
It sounds like you did not bother to read the article that I wrote, nor to attempt to understand the scientific points discussed in the article.
At this moment, it truly sounds like your business is more about greenwashing and deflecting responsibility for the issue with your product and less about the transparency that you write about in your marketing hype.
Please read the article and TRY to UNDERSTAND the science before you issue any public statements that are along the lines of the outrageous, dismissive email you sent out (above.)
I will be publishing this and our earlier communications on my website, as I always do.
Tamara Rubin
OWNER — Lead Safe Mama, LLC
NOT A BLOGGER
NOT USING HOME TEST KITS
NOT USING A HOME TEST KIT MACHINE 😂🤣
Never Miss an Important Article Again!
Join our Email List
Where can I get one of those home test kit machines?!
Me too!
I looked this dinnerware up and it’s so expensive and having lead in it is really bad considering that they can make it without lead.
I just want to say, of all the companies who try to defend the position of having lead in their products, those who attempt to do so by discrediting the work of the Lead Safe Mama team are just…the worst. If that’s the initial go-to “defense” they almost always turn out to be incredibly immoral companies.
I guess that’s what one should expect from a company using lead in their DISHES in the first place though ♀️ That’s a particularly sad subject for me because four generations of my family were lead poisoned for many years because of “special fancy and expensive ceramic dishes” that my great grandmother acquired and used exclusively (The rose dishes). This is a serious issue and dishes with lead in them are an extreme risk to brain and organ health. Lead exposure creates severe mental impairment. That is a well known fact. There is no excuse to have it in dishes, absolutely none.
Of all the things lead doesn’t belong in/on, your plate is the most important.
Preach it mama!
All I can do is offer up a round of applause! I get your frustration too, by the way – their replies have been lazy, condescending, and sexist.
Personally, I don’t even see the need for expensive ceramic dishes, when you can get plain glass Duralex and they’re safe and you don’t even have to worry about breaking them. Of course, I don’t do any fancy entertaining and I am klutzy in the kitchen, so I end up breaking things sooner or later. I guess fancy plates are not my thing…
Anyway, I think they’re messing the wrong person….
Thanks for holding companies accountable. We need this and I will not be purchasing any items from them. The lack of accountability rubs me the wrong way.
Wow. And with that, I would never buy from them based on this careless response. I do love when the companies end up working with you to fix the problem, and those companies I would give another shot. This does not look promising and sounds like they will just keep lying to their customers 🙁
Love your responses. You are a boss.
Wow. Fable’s preferred method of testing — checking whether lead is stabilized in the glaze and won’t leach — sounds safe enough for me for occasional-use plates. (Though I’d love to know: do their tests simulate acidic foods, heat, or microwave conditions?)
That said, the way they handled this — dismissing your analysis and treating you like some mommy blogger who isn’t even using proper tools — really left a foul taste in my mouth. It’s one thing to stand by your product. It’s another to outright lie and position your ceramics as “lead-free” when they’re not! Especially since the glaze, which comes in direct contact with food, contains more lead than the unglazed base. That’s not naturally occurring from the clay — that’s a choice to add more lead during the manufacturing process.
I was perfectly happy to purchase a dinnerware set from them for entertaining + occasional use since they pass lead leach tests and are effectively lead-safe, but the dishonesty from Fable’s CEO and customer service have turned me off.