Tamara Rubin tests household products, food and toys for lead, cadmium and other heavy metals, and publishes the results.
Commenters find the site useful and note she replies in the comments. They also warn that swab test kits are unreliable and lead is ubiquitous.
Ok so diving in, The Guardian is reblogging a blog "lead safe mama".
"lead safe mama" is an activist and filmmaker, who does not appear to have a scientific background, and who may primarily be motivated by taking on legal cases. [0]
Furthermore, in the toothpaste (informal, blogger-led) study it appears that the testing was performed by "Purity Laboratories" using "ICP-MS" instrumentation. [1]
According to "Purity's" own marketing it's admitted the "ICP-MS" may cause interferences, though they aren't specifically quantified. [2] Other laboratories primarily market the technique specifically for testing raw for contamination[3] and discusses "dynamic range", rather than what I speculate is "a complex matrix" though I myself am not technical enough to recognize the meaning there.
According to an instrument vendor, Agilent, there are other considerable number of other constraints and variables where the laboratory process itself could introduce issues[4] and alarmingly, I'm unable to locate any details regarding specificity or FPRs, and there's some evidence of targeted advocate edits on Wikipedia regarding the viability of this application of this technique. Furthermore these advocate edits specify a different methodology for health-related detection, rather testing wastes for result of contamination than testing products themselves. Even furthermore Agilent, one vendor that has strategically been selected for my review of technical details about the technique specifies…
Here are the full test results from the person/group who tested the toothpastes:
https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/toothpaste-chart/
I think there will probably be a great deal of controversy about this until some scientists/food scientists take a look at the results and give us their view.
Heavy metals are unfortunately found in soil and can result in contaminated food & other products. The issue is the amount in the product & the amount you're consuming.
You're most likely not going to get lead poisoning from using a pea sized amount of toothpaste twice a day through brushing & spitting it out. If you swallowed the entire tube of toothpaste that might be a different story. This could be a situation where the pros outweigh the cons and it's just one of those inevitabilities we deal with in life. But, it's entirely possible some brands are using very poor quality control and it's highly contaminated.
If you're concerned, you can always get a blood test for heavy metals from your doctor.
The brand we settled on was Pillivuyt (better quality). You can get Corelware for cheaper that seems to be tested safe, but if you're looking for stuff that's going to last, you want actual porcelain dishware.
The other brand that we found was sold by Sur La Table, made in Turkey.
We chose porcelain over some other materials (like glass) because it's more durable, and Pillivuyt has been making the stuff for a long time (simple, high quality).
You can read up on lead glazing issues on Lead Safe Mama ( https://tamararubin.com/ ).
You will not find this brand among her recommendations, but my wife went to the trouble to research stated lead levels in glazing processes from a number of manufacturers. There are differences in their lines, as well. The ones you get direct from France, or through Nordstrom are the "good" lines and the William Sonoma lines are cheaper (for Pillivuyt).
There can be lead in almost any man-made good or processed food. And even unprocessed food grown in contaminated soils.
Lead is such a ubiquitous contamination that it is worth educating yourself about and getting baseline blood tests. This site has lots of useful information: https://tamararubin.com/
The author tests products with an XRF gun and her reports have initiated recalls. It's a commentary on our lack of enforcement and oversight that one individual could be the primary source of information about lead contamination for many. Unfortunately if a company can claim their product is not for use by children than it can't really get recalled and many of us are using dishware with lead in them and have unnecessary lead exposures.
Watch out for dishes, especially older ones. The older Lenox dishes my family used for 40 years turned out to have heavily leaded glaze on the surface. By the time I was using them for my own kids, the glaze could turn a lead-check swab bright red, which means we were eating that lead.
After I discovered this I replaced all of our dishes with plain white Corelle. Corelle currently uses lead-free glaze; the plain white is just me being an absolutist.
Note that vintage Corelle and almost all other vintage cookware contains some amount of lead in the decorative glaze.
Here's a good resource for lead content in the household items your kids are likely to encounter:
https://tamararubin.com/
The first link in the article contains PPM, and if you click through it lists % actionable levels for the individual brands / contaminants:
https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/toothpaste-chart/
Maybe HN should just link to this?
Incidentally, apparently, they test based on donations from their reader base. Most of their readers are interested in weird fluoride-free stuff.
If you want them to test more mainstream brands, you can send them money:
https://tamararubin.com/2025/02/lead-safe-mama-llc-fundraisers-for-toothpaste-testing/
I'm not endorsing them, and have no idea how well they conduct their tests, etc. There might be a better way to fund independent testing of consumer products.