Are you wondering if Santa and his elves used unleaded paint on your toys this year?  Bring them into the store to be tested December 26 - 29 from 10 am - 6 pm to find out.  Free lead testing is always available at No Strings Attached Toys.  For directions to our store in LaFayette, NY click here.

Better yet, stop by before Christmas to pick up your last minute lead safe toys and stocking stuffers.  We will be open Monday - Saturday 10 am - 6 pm and Christmas Eve 10 am - 3 pm. 

Through the course of our free lead testing, we love to see all the toys that have no measurable amounts of lead. But then there are the toys that just surprise us that have ridiculous amounts of lead in them but haven’t been recalled yet.  So this will be the first of our unofficial recalls where we will post toys that fail our tests.

Just today we tested a Radio Flyer Fold 2 Go Tricycle. 

The black wheels tested at several thousand parts per million, far above the safety standard of 600 enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  We were shocked by the results.  While I don’t expect the wheels get chewed on much, it seems really bad for that much lead to be present in the wheels.

We also tested the numbers on a book about calling 9-1-1 in an emergency.

The numbers tested at 1500 ppm, also beyond the federal standards.

We will alert the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the manufacturers, and the retailers that sell these products.  We will also regularly add products that fail lead tests.  More importantly, we will begin a database of toys that successfully pass lead tests.  We hope this database will eventually list every safe toy that exists.  Until then, we will just continue to test every toy brought into our store.

A familiar, dreaded event on Christmas morning for parents is extracting toys from their packaging after they have been unwrapped. The name No Strings Attached Toys comes from the splendid idea of toys without twist ties and that horrible impenetrable plastic packaging. After gifts were opened in our household on Christmas 2006, our daughter took matters into her own hands and tried to rescue her toys as illustrated in our home movie.

We still have toys at home with embedded twist ties and zip ties or permanent scars from where those ties were originally attached. What a ridiculous feature. It’s an outrage that’s almost as offensive as using lead paint (which we also vigorously oppose). Why is this becoming the packaging standard? We will only sell toys not restrained unnecessarily or sewn, welded, superglued or otherwise fastened in a way that cannot be quickly opened without tools.

Our toys are so easy, a toddler could open it. No chainsaw required. Shouldn’t all toys be made this way?

While the news reporters are constantly mentioning the next recalled toy manufactured in China, many have decided that the best way to stay safe is to avoid Chinese made toys.  Certainly with the majority of toys sold in the US coming from China, the majority of the recalls will also originate from China.  The natural assumption is that China is recklessly sending over poor quality and unsafe toys and that the solution is as simple as exclusively buying toys made in the US or other safer countries. 

What we need to remember is that countries don’t make unsafe toys, companies in countries make unsafe toys.  The problem doesn’t lie with China, but with specific companies — many of which are in China.  The recalls are all product and company specific problems resulting from careless design and faulty inspection processes and quality control.  Even Mattel has apologized to the people of China for damaging their reputation.  They acknowledged that they were to blame for their flawed design, not the company who followed their design.  There are many, many toymakers who make high quality toys in China and throughout the world and have very good inspection procedures to ensure safety.

The relative few toys that have been recalled have caused widespread mistrust with products made overseas.  But it’s not just where the label says a toy is made that makes it safe.  Since many toy manufacturers  still use some parts or materials from other countries, you can never generalize that a toy is safe based solely on where it originated as it still may contain unsafe parts from elsewhere. 

No Strings Attached Toys actively seeks toys made in the US to support local companies, but doesn’t use that as proof that toys are safe.  Instead, toys sold in store are first chosen by finding manufacturers that have clean safety records and vigorous testing and inspection practices, regardless of their location of their factories.  When new products are received, they are then tested in store with an XRF Analyzer to be certain that the toys on the shelf exceed government safety standards.  Shopping at a responsible toy store for toys that have passed lead tests is a far safer method to shop than blindly trusting location labels. 

The blame for lead recalls lies entirely on those who fail to inspect toys thoroughly.  China is not to blame any more than the US is to blame for allowing the tainted products into the marketplace here.

We haven’t been using leaded gasoline in our cars since the Clean Air Act banned the practice in 1996.  Why is it that in 2007, we still haven’t gotten the lead completely out of our toys?  Toy recalls due to high lead levels are entirely preventable and need to stop now. 

First it is the responsibility of the toy manufacturers to know intimately what is in their products before they are sent to retailers.  Rigorous quality control is needed to ensure that all toys meet all safety standards.

Retailers have a responsibility as well.  They are the last line of defense to the public when it comes to toy safety.  It is the opinion of No Strings Attached Toys that the retailer is obligated to know what it is that they are selling to their customers.

At No Strings Attached Toys, we check the safety record of all of our suppliers and test each toy for lead before offering them for sale.  All toy retailers need to adopt their own practices to prevent leaded toys from ever hitting their shelves.  We won’t rest until lead recalls become a thing of the past.

No Strings Attached Toys began as a fantasy to Tim and Carol Gilchrist in 2004 after countless frustrations with toys bound in ridiculous amounts of twist ties and practically impenetrable plastic packaging.  The thought of a toy store where all toys came in packaging that could be opened without tools or risk of injury while opening was rather appealing.  The decision was made to someday open a consumer friendly toy store.

Near the end of summer 2007, the Gilchrists moved from the Seattle area to LaFayette, NY.  Almost immediately, nearby retail space opened up in town - just right for a toy store.  With increasing press on toy recalls and lead paint scares, Tim and Carol began the search for toys that did not contain lead and acquired an X-Ray Fluorescence Analyzer to prove that they are all lead safe. 

Just in time for the holidays, No Strings Attached Toys opened in LaFayette, NY the week of Thanksgiving and has been steadily increasing their inventory with new manufacturers and new products that meet their strict safety and packaging standards. 

In addition to selling toys, No Strings Attached Toys also offers free lead testing to the public in their store throughout the year.  The owners also travel throughout Central New York to preschools, daycares, schools, churches, and doctor and dentist offices year round for free to test any toys for unsafe levels of lead.