Beware! The soft and cute plush toys in the claw machine may hurt you without you knowing it

The claw machines in shopping malls have the power to seduce people. The interesting process of catching dolls and the cute and soft dolls always make people eager to try. However, these dolls are not as cute and harmless as they look. The peculiar smell they emit from time to time is a dangerous signal.

It is common for plush toys to be unqualified. In 2021, the Nantong Municipal Market Supervision Administration of Jiangsu Province conducted a city-level supervision and random inspection on the quality of children's plush toys. Among the 20 batches inspected, 4 batches were unqualified. In 2022, the Hunan Provincial Market Supervision Administration recalled 3,400 plush toys with safety hazards, and the cheap puppets in the claw machines were the hardest hit areas with frequent problems.

How does the plush doll in the claw machine stab you in the back? This starts with two key points in the production process: the covering layer and filling of the plush toy .

Formaldehyde exceeds the standard . The covering layer of plush toys is the part that comes into direct contact with our skin, and is generally made of dyed wool, cotton, etc. Some people may ask, how are wool and cotton involved with formaldehyde?

The key to the problem lies in the coloring process . The plush toys we see usually have beautiful colors and cute prints, and the formation of this beautiful appearance often cannot be separated from the "assistance" of formaldehyde.

During the coloring process of fabrics, formaldehyde can improve the durability of printing and dyeing auxiliaries on textiles. In addition, China has few restrictions on the formaldehyde content of textiles in plush and cloth toys. Some profit-seeking merchants cut corners in the subsequent mite removal process. Therefore, cheap dolls usually have a faint odor, which is the smell of formaldehyde. The more beautiful, the more dangerous. The more colorful and printed the dolls are, the more likely they are to have a risk of excessive formaldehyde.

Excessive formaldehyde can cause more than just odor. As an extremely active chemical substance, it is easily soluble in water and can irritate the eyes, nose, skin, etc. Long-term contact can also cause dermatitis, itching, and respiratory diseases similar to asthma, and even lead to nasopharyngeal cancer and death. Currently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified formaldehyde as a Class I carcinogen.

Black-hearted cotton filling . Generally speaking, qualified plush toys use lint cotton of grade 6 or above as filling, which has clean, loose and elastic fibers. However, some unscrupulous merchants abandon high-quality lint cotton in pursuit of higher economic benefits and use "black-hearted cotton" bleached with bleaching powder or whitened with yellowing as filling.

This type of cotton not only destroys the wax layer of the cotton fiber epidermis, but also absorbs a large amount of chemicals into the fiber, which is full of odor . Moreover, after secondary processing, industrial waste also has serious dust and pathogenic bacteria, which can easily induce respiratory diseases and cause skin itching. In severe cases, it can lead to skin diseases and other infectious diseases.

Mites . In addition to the covering and filling, the mites living in the doll's body and plush should not be ignored. The eggs, dandruff, secretions, and even the corpses of dust mites are antigenic. If these particles rub against the eyes, nose, lower respiratory tract, and skin, they will cause allergies and specific symptoms.

Unless exposed to the sun, it is difficult to remove dust mites and bacteria from plush toys. So it is more practical to spend money directly to buy a qualified and clean doll than to waste time and money in front of a claw machine to get a doll with safety hazards.

According to the national standard "Instructions for Use of Consumer Products", the instructions for use of plush toys should include key information such as name, model, age range, safety warnings, name and content of main ingredients, etc. And for toys that meet the standards and obtain certification, the certification mark 3C should be affixed to the appropriate position of the product body or on the product label.

If you want to avoid being backstabbed by plush toys, be sure to look for the 3C mark when purchasing and carefully identify the "identity" of the doll!

END

References:

Nantong Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau. (2021). Announcement on the Municipal Supervision and Sampling of Plastic Toys, Plush Toys, and Fake Water (Crystal Mud) Product Quality in 2021 (Issue 3).

Hunan Provincial Market Supervision Administration. (2022). Xiangtan Leyi Toys Co., Ltd. recalls some Leyi brand 9-inch and 14-inch plush toys.

CNCA-13C-073_2010 "Implementation Rules for Compulsory Certification of Toy Products"[S]

GB5296.5—2006 “Instructions for use of consumer products”[S]