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Miniature painting
All Containers›Shop by use case›Miniature painting›The statute›The small container clauseShop all miniature painting →
The statute

The small container clause

By Dwight Davis, Founder

On this page11
The statute anticipated the bottle being too small and did not solve it by asking for less.

The wording

Where the Commission determines that an art material in a container "equal to or smaller than one fluid ounce (30 ml)... has the potential for producing chronic adverse health effects with customary or reasonably foreseeable use despite its small size", it "may require the art material to carry a label which conveys all the information required under the standard" for a larger container.

Read the last six words again

All the information required for a container greater than one fluid ounce. A small bottle does not get a short label; it gets the same label as a big one.

And by weight as well

One ounce net weight, 28 g, where the product is sold by weight. Which covers pigment and basing material, not only liquids.

It is a may, not a shall

The clause gives the Commission the power on a determination rather than setting an automatic rule. That is a real distinction and this property is not going to pretend otherwise.

But it is the wrong thing to plan around

Designing a 15 mL product on the assumption that no determination will be made leaves the label as the thing that breaks if one is. Designing for the full label costs a decision about the container and nothing else.

Which is why the clause is in this property at all

It is the rare regulation that is explicitly about the physical size of the package. The threshold is 30 mL and 115 of our 793 containers are at or under it.

The practical answer is usually a bigger label surface

A cylindrical bottle with a straight wall takes a wrap label; a tapered or faceted one does not. At 15 mL the difference between those two is the difference between fitting the text and not.

Or an insert

The statute contemplates the information being conveyed, and a package insert is one way to carry what the bottle cannot. That is a decision about the outer packaging rather than the bottle.

Which is the honest answer for a dropper bottle

A 15 mL dropper has room for a name, a net contents and very little else. Anything approaching the full label is going on a card, a box or a leaflet that travels with it.

And it has to stay with the product

An insert that goes in the bin with the shipping box has conveyed nothing. If the information is on an insert, the insert has to be the thing the user keeps.

References

15 U.S.C. 1277(b)(7). Where the Commission determines that an art material "in a container equal to or smaller than one fluid ounce (30 ml) (if the product is sold by volume) or one ounce net weight (28 g) (if the product is sold by weight) has the potential for producing chronic adverse health effects with customary or reasonably foreseeable use despite its small size", the Commission "may require the art material to carry a label which conveys all the information required under the standard referred to in subsection (a) as modified by this subsection for art materials in a container greater than one fluid ounce or one ounce net weight". law.cornell.edu
The Davis Pack Supply catalog, measured 18 October 2026. The miniature painting shelf is 1,439 rows: 793 containers and 646 closures. 5 mL to 9,464 mL with a median of 118; 41 containers at 15 mL or under, 115 at 30 mL or under, 228 at 60 or under and 411 at 120 or under. 430 PET, 133 HDPE, 133 glass, 87 PP, 9 steel. 487 bottles, 281 jars, 13 tubs and pails, 9 tins, 2 tubes. 143 amber or dark amber. Closures: 382 continuous thread, 43 dropper assemblies, 32 disc top, 31 child resistant, 27 dome lids, 26 spouted, 19 lug and twist, 17 flip top, 14 phenolic, 13 spice caps.
Written from 15 U.S.C. 1277, 16 CFR 1500.14(b)(8) and 16 CFR 1500.3(c)(6), and from the catalog as it stood on 18 October 2026. Where a requirement turns on a determination the Commission makes rather than on a fixed rule, this property says so. Nothing here is a toxicological review, which is the one thing in this area that cannot be done from a document.