Claire's Has Pulled 17 Makeup Products After They Tested Positive for Asbestos
Just five months after reports of children's makeup at Justice testing positive for asbestos, it's happening again - this time at the popular jewelry and accessories store Claire's.
WJAR, an NBC news station in Rhode Island, reports that mom Kristi Warner was concerned about the safety of the kid's makeup she'd purchased at Claire's for her 6-year-old daughter, so she sent it to an independent lab for testing.
Alarmingly, the lab results came back positive for tremolite asbestos, a toxic substance which, if inhaled, can cause malignant mesothelioma decades later, according to the National Cancer Institute.
"I physically sank," Warner told WJAR. "I ended up sitting on the ground, just trying to wrap my head around how something like that could end up in our home."
Doing the due diligence instilled in her by working at a law firm, Warner decided to purchase additional products to have tested, not just from the Providence Place Mall location from which she'd originally bought the makeup, but from Claire's locations in nine other states.
All 17 products sent to the Scientific Analytical Institute tested positive for asbestos.
JUST IN: Claire's is pulling more than a dozen products from stores after a Barrington family finds ASBESTOS in their 6-year-old daughter's makeup.
Below are some of the products. Working on the full story at 6 on @NBC10pic.twitter.com/OaKI8eUvUH
- Emily Volz (@NBC10_Emily) December 22, 2017
It should be noted, the Scientific Analytical Institute and its director, Sean Fitzgerald, are the same independent lab and scientist that say they found asbestos in Justice makeup earlier this year; furthermore, after their own independent lab tests showed there was not asbestos in the questionable product, Justice has accused the Scientific Analytical Institute of reporting inaccurate results.
Despite the lab's previously disputed results in a similar case, Claire's has pulled all 17 products off shelves as a measure of caution.
The brand announced in a statement on its Facebook page that it will also be conducting its own investigation:
"At Claire's the safety of our customers is of paramount importance, and we are passionate about the safety and integrity of our products. We work closely with our vendors to ensure our products are tested and assessed in line with the relevant country regulations and guidelines. As a result of today's inquiry from WJAR-TV, we have taken the precautionary measure of pulling the items in question from sale, and will be conducting an immediate investigation into the alleged issues. Once we have more information and have the results of the investigation we will take the necessary action."
Although Claire's, like most national brands, has procedures to ensure its products fall within national and regional safety standards, some experts say more can and should be done to keep beauty consumers safe.
"The Personal Care Safety Act, a bipartisan bill, has gained support from both small companies and giants of the industry as well as advocacy groups, and it has the best chance of modernizing our outdated cosmetics laws," says Birnur Aral, Ph.D., Director of the Good Housekeeping Institute's Health, Beauty and Environmental Sciences Lab. She has stressed that instances like this are examples of why cosmetics need to be regulated as tightly as pharmaceuticals and food.
A list of the names of the 17 products was not provided. However, if you have Claire's makeup and are concerned they're among the products that tested positive for asbestos, you can compare them against a photo gallery of the products on turnto10.com.
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