Topics: Toxins in Jewelry

Brains & Beakers: Watch CEH at Oakland’s Youth Radio

Watch the video of CEH’s recent visit to Youth Radio, to demonstrate some of our work for their Brains and Beakers event.  Research Director Caroline Cox, along with Research Assistant Matt Nevins, showed students how they use an X-ray gun to test the chemical makeup — and safety — of fashion accessories and household items.

A Synthetic Satire: The Toxies 2011!

The second annual Toxies were a smash hit, with great interviews of all the bad actor nominees, and enough toxic glamour and glitz to light up all of Hollywood! Held at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California, the Toxies ceremony honored killer chemicals with all the style and grace a true awards show should have. [...]

Styles for Less? More like Styles with Lead!

Yes, once again, the Center for Environmental Health has discovered another retailer selling lead-tainted jewelry .  Styles for Less, a “junior and misses retail store”, markets to young “tween” and teenage girls, who are particularly at risk from lead exposures, as are women of child-bearing age.  Testing commissioned by CEH has found extremely high levels [...]

Moving Past Pinkwashing: Breast Cancer Prevention Means Eliminating Toxics

Today I bought a yogurt and opened it up to find a pink ribbon on the back of the lid next to the words “Breast Cancer Awareness Month”.  For the last few years, these pink ribbons have been omnipresent in everything from media to food product packaging during the month of October.  So, are all [...]

Eco-Tip: Ten Everyday Toxics to Avoid

Have you seen USA Today’s brand new health magazine Fresh? The first issue includes a list of “Top 10 toxins and how to protect your family.” When a widely-read mainstream publication like USA Today tackles a topic like this, everyone in the environmental health movement is pleased. If USA Today had asked me to write [...]

We Did It! The Cadmium Ban Passes in CA

Thousands of CEH members around the California came together last month and told the state Assembly that kids’ jewelry should never be toxic. Our work forced the jewelry industry to eliminate lead threats, but some jewelry makers responded by substituting cadmium, another toxic metal, for the lead they could no longer use in children’s jewelry. [...]

CEH Stands Up to Ban Cadmium

Last week, the Center for Environmental Health and State Senator Fran Pavley led supporters in Sacramento, urging Governor Schwarzenegger to sign the bill to ban the toxic metal cadmium, from children’s jewelry. This bill would cap cadmium use at 300 parts per million. CEH brought our x-ray florescence machine along to test parents’ and their [...]

Protecting Kids from Leady Products in Stores: My Summer as a CEH Intern

This past summer, the Center for Environmental Health hosted two high school interns from the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, a grant-making public charity that supports grassroots initiatives to inspire community action to protect the environment, consumers, and public health. One of our summer interns, 18 year old Salvador Mateo from Mandela High [...]

CEH Action Prompts Nationwide Jewelry Recall

Following an investigation and legal action earlier this year by the Center for Environmental Health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Tween Brands today announced a recall of 19 styles of children’s metal necklaces, bracelets and earrings due to high levels of cadmium. About 137,000 pieces of jewelry were pulled from the company’s Justice and [...]

Confessions of a Young Man’s Love For Jewelry… Compliance Testing

If you were to search for men who admit to frequenting Claire’s Boutique – where your teenage daughters shop for clothes, jewelry, and other fashion accessories with short shelf lives – I am quite certain that you would spend a long time looking.  I visit this store often, along with many others that sell women’s [...]