Children’s Product Safety Testing

Amitié Lane is a small, family-run business that cares about the safety of children.
For this reason, we ALWAYS do our due diligence with each of our products to ensure they are completely safe for use by children.

Aside from our personal commitment, federal law in each of the countries we sell in requires us as a manufacturer to test our products for compliance with consumer product safety requirements. All testing can ONLY be performed by a third-party accredited laboratory that has been accepted to perform the specific tests for each children’s product safety rule.

To help explain this process, we will use the US safety standards as an example.

What is a third-party testing laboratory?

We only use CPSC-accepted laboratories to gain certification that our products have passed a series of tests, based on sufficient samples.

To be accepted by the Commission, third‐party testing laboratories must be independently accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2005‐‐General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories. The accreditation must be conducted by a full member of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation‐‐Mutual Recognition Arrangement (“ILAC‐MRA”).

ISO 17025 accreditation of a laboratory includes an assessment to confirm the technical competence of the laboratory for certain testing methods and also includes an assessment of a laboratory’s management and organization to ensure safeguards against undue influence. The laboratory must have arrangements to ensure that its management and personnel are free from any undue internal and external commercial, financial and other pressures and influences that may adversely affect the quality of their work.

What do we test for?

ASTM F963-17

The ASTM F963-17 specification, in addition to covering guidelines, contains test methods for toys, and it is intended for toys for use by children under 14 years of age. As toys differentiate in their components and usage, the document addresses a wide range of materials for which it covers safety requirements.

Specifically, within this test method/regulation, we test for:

• Mechanical and Physical Properties
• Flammability of Toys
• Heavy Metals

US CPSIA, Section 108 – Phthalates Content

This regulation covers the use of specified phthalates in children’s toys and child care articles. Phthalates are chemical plasticizers that are often used in the production of many types of plastics. Phthalates, most often, but not always, are used to make plastics softer and/or more pliable.

US CPSIA, Section 101- Total Lead Content

With a few limited exceptions, all children’s products manufactured in or imported into the United States must not contain more than acceptable lead content in accessible parts. All accessible component parts of the children’s product must comply with the total lead limits requirement.

CPSIA requirements for total lead content are:

• Limit for paint and similar surface coatings: 90 ppm
• Limit for substrate materials (e.g. metals and plastics): 100 ppm

What does the testing involve?

The labs that we use have highly sophisticated testing equipment and methods. The equipment in these labs is expensive and must comply with standards to ensure they are calibrated to give accurate results. The staff that use this equipment are professionally trained.

We are required to send several samples (at least 4) of the same product, to ensure testing consistency.
The testing takes approximately 1-2 weeks for us to receive the results.

What happens after testing?

Based on passing test results, we must then certify the product as compliant with the applicable consumer product safety requirements in a written or electronic certificate. Certificates are required to accompany the applicable product or shipment of products covered by the certificate, and a copy must be provided to retailers, distributors and, upon request, to the government.

Certification means the issuance of a written Children’s Product Certificate (CPC) in which we certify that our children’s product complies with all applicable children’s product safety rules (or similar rules, bans, standards, or regulations under any law enforced by the CPSC Commission for that product.)

Testing example – Unicorn Charm Bracelet

For the purpose of demonstrating our commitment to children’s safety, here is an example of our testing history for our unicorn charm bracelet. The bracelet is sold with our unicorn jewelry box and as a stand-alone product.

• November 2019: Before beginning production of this product, we had it tested with Eurofins lab to ensure it was safe for children. After receiving a PASS result for US safety standards, we launched the bracelet with the jewelry box in the US in January 2020.
• April 2020: We then tested for Australian safety standards and EU safety standards, using HTT lab. These results also PASSED.
• June 2021: When content was posted online by a consumer about this product, claiming it was unsafe, we were naturally surprised and concerned. We had the component in question tested again, using CTT (Consumer Testing Technology) lab. It PASSED.

The testing history of this product now has 4 separate PASSED test results, with three independent, approved laboratories.

An example of one of these tests is below:

Questions?

If you have any questions relating to the safety and testing of Amitié Lane’s products, please reach out to us. We are more than happy to discuss this important topic with you.