Nice to look at, mostly inexpensive, but sometimes quite problematic: costume jewelry. Authorities and consumer advocates regularly come across too much lead, cadmium, or other pollutants in tests of fashion jewelry items.
What’s in the custom jewelry that can make you unfit?
A bracelet from the discounter TEDi, earrings from Bijou Brigitte, a Butterfly Necklace from Butterfly High Collections, and other custom jewelry from unknown manufacturers. Be wary of jewelry from unknown manufacturers, they have all been found in the European Rapid Alert System for Consumer Products (RAPEX) in recent years. The authorities in EU countries use this online registration to exchange information about dangerous or potentially dangerous products. It records consumer goods such as clothing, shoes, cosmetics, children’s toys – and jewelry.
When it comes to jewelry, the dangers almost always come from costume jewelry, which contains dangerous chemicals or metals. Excessive, sometimes dangerous levels of lead, cadmium, or nickel are often reported to the rapid alert system. The majority of the offending jewelry items recorded in recent years come from China.
The toxic cheap jewelry finds its way to buyers via the Internet and street retailers. The latter chain, which claims to be the fashion jewelry market leader, has attracted attention four times since 2017 for products that release too high a nickel content (see: Recall – too much nickel in earrings by Bijou Brigitte )
Heavy metals in costume jewelry: that’s how big the problem is
Excessive cadmium levels in jewelry were reported to the EU rapid alert system a total of 150 times between 2015 and 2019; according to the system, around 80 percent of the rejected products came from China. Too much lead in jewelry was complained about 60 times in the same period, here more than half of the products came from the People’s Republic.
Anyone who searches the product warnings in the EU database at the moment also finds that in 2020 several pieces of jewelry were reported that released too much nickel.
How high the unreported number of questionable fashion jewelry is that is sold in this country can only be estimated – the authorities can only check and record a fraction of the products. If one takes the studies of the last few years as a basis, it can be assumed that roughly 10 percent of the pieces of jewelry from the cheap segment violate one or the other EU limit value.
