It means the piece met a legal limit for lead somewhere, without telling you which limit. Those limits differ widely. For children's products sold in the United States, total lead content in the metal is capped at 100 parts per million. The European Union's limit for jewelry in general is 0.05% by weight, which is five times higher. So lead compliant jewelry can be compliant with a standard that was never written for children. Our Safety Promise sets out which standards we test to.
The useful question isn't whether a piece is lead compliant. It's compliant with what, tested by whom, and on which parts.
Myth: "lead compliant" means the jewelry contains no lead
Fact: every lead limit allows some lead.
Metals are rarely perfectly pure, and lead turns up as a trace in many alloys. Every regulation sets a ceiling rather than demanding zero. "Lead free" on a label is rarely a measurement of zero either. It usually means the result was below a limit, and the label doesn't say which limit that was.
Myth: all lead limits for jewelry are the same
Fact: the limit depends on who the jewelry is for and where it's sold.
| Rule | Who it covers | Lead limit |
|---|---|---|
| CPSIA, United States | Children's products, designed for children 12 and under | 100 parts per million total lead in the material |
| CPSIA, United States | Paint and surface coatings on children's products | 90 parts per million |
| REACH, European Union | Jewelry in general | 0.05% by weight, equal to 500 parts per million |
The US children's limit is the strictest of these. It applies to anything designed or intended primarily for children 12 and under, which includes children's jewelry.
Adult jewelry doesn't have to meet it. A pair of earrings sold as general fashion jewelry can be fully lead compliant under a looser rule, and a child can still end up wearing them.
Myth: lead compliant means nickel free
Fact: lead and nickel are different metals with different rules.
A lead result tells you nothing about nickel. Nickel is the metal behind most earring reactions, and the United States has no legal limit on how much nickel an earring may release. The European test for nickel release is EN 1811, and a brand that has run it can give you a number or a "not detected" result.
Myth: lead compliant means the jewelry is hypoallergenic
Fact: lead limits exist for a different reason.
Lead is regulated in children's products because of what happens if it's swallowed or mouthed, not because of skin allergy. For a small stud in a healed ear, the lead question matters most when a young child puts jewelry in her mouth or swallows a piece. "Hypoallergenic" isn't a regulated term for jewelry at all, so pairing the two words on a label combines one tested claim with one untested one.
Myth: a compliant label means every pair was tested
Fact: compliance testing is done on samples.
Under CPSIA, children's products must be tested by a third-party laboratory accepted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the manufacturer or importer issues a Children's Product Certificate based on those results. The laboratory tests representative samples, not every pair that ships. So the questions worth asking are which pieces were sent, and which parts of those pieces were tested.
What about cadmium?
Cadmium is a heavy metal that has been used as a cheap substitute in some jewelry. ASTM F2923, the US safety specification for children's jewelry, includes cadmium alongside lead, and several US states set their own cadmium limits for children's jewelry. A lead result on its own doesn't cover it. If a brand gives you a lead figure and says nothing about cadmium, it's a fair question to ask, and a brand that tested for it will know the answer straight away.
Can I test her jewelry for lead at home?
Not reliably. Home swab kits react to lead on the surface, and they can miss lead inside the metal or give false readings. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has found home lead test kits unreliable for this reason. A laboratory measures lead properly, either by X-ray fluorescence or by dissolving a sample and analyzing it.
If you're worried that a child has swallowed a piece of jewelry, contact her pediatrician or Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 straight away.
The questions that replace the label
- Which standard? CPSIA for children's products, or a general jewelry rule?
- Which laboratory? An independent one, and ideally a named one.
- Which parts? The front, the post and the back, or the front alone?
- What about nickel? Is there an EN 1811 result as well?
What we do
When I chose what to send to SGS, I picked the pieces with the largest surface area that sits against the ear, eight pairs in all. They tested the setting, the post and the butterfly back. The back is the part that's easiest to leave out, because on a lot of earrings it doesn't even come from the same factory as the front.
Our earrings are independently tested by SGS to ASTM F2923, CPSIA and BSEN 71-3, with lead below a tenth of the United States legal limit and nickel release not detected under EN 1811. Report BTO 341803/1, and you can ask me for it.
We use two materials. S316L Surgical Steel, on its own throughout the Polished Surgical Steel range. And 24K Pure Gold, which is pure 24 karat gold applied onto a S316L Surgical Steel core with Aunix™ 24K, our engineered gold finish. It's a gold-plating process, and we say so.
If you want the gold version with the testing behind it, the 5mm Flawless Crystal Stud Earrings in 24K Pure Gold are finished in pure 24 karat gold over a S316L Surgical Steel core, tested to the same standards. The full range is on the 24K Pure Gold collection.
Questions parents ask next
Does "lead safe" mean anything? There's no regulation that defines it for jewelry. Ask which limit the piece was tested against and what the result was.
Is lead in earrings dangerous through the skin? Lead is mainly a risk when it's swallowed or mouthed, which is why children's limits are strict. That's the reason small parts and young children are the focus of the rules.
Does CPSIA apply to adult jewelry? Its lead limit applies to children's products. Jewelry sold for adults doesn't have to meet it.
What's a Children's Product Certificate? A document in which the manufacturer or importer certifies that a children's product meets the applicable US safety rules, based on third-party laboratory testing.
Is "lead and nickel free" the same as hypoallergenic? No. Neither phrase is a defined allergy standard. Ask for the lead result against CPSIA and the nickel release result under EN 1811.
Related reading
- Does nickel free actually mean nickel free?
- What does "hypoallergenic" actually mean on a jewelry label?
- Are hypoallergenic earrings real?
- What are the safest earrings for kids?
About the author. Matt Westmore is the founder of purepixxi. He came to children's jewelry from manufacturing and sourcing rather than marketing, which means he has walked the factory floors and knows what is actually inside a product rather than what a label says about it. purepixxi uses two materials only, names them exactly, and has them independently tested.
