Getting started

Is this for you at all

Updated October 2026

On this page7

What this covers The question Four factors decide it Two of the four are things you print Which means you can do this to yourself What these pages do References

The question that decides which rules apply to a bead is not what the bead is made of.

What this covers

Bails and pinch bails, bead caps, spacer beads, crimp beads, lobster and toggle clasps, ear wires, post earrings, head pins, split rings, jump rings, chain scrap and wire gauge. Fifteen leaves, two jar shelves, and one question that has to be settled before either of them matters.

The question

Is what you are selling a children’s product. A consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger is a children’s product, and once it is, a 100 ppm total lead limit, a 0.009 percent lead paint limit, third party testing by an accredited body and a permanent mark on the packaging all apply to it.

Four factors decide it

A manufacturer statement about intended use, including a label on the product if the statement is reasonable. How the product is represented in its packaging, display, promotion or advertising. Whether consumers commonly recognize it as intended for a child of 12 or younger. And the Commission staff’s Age Determination Guidelines.

Two of the four are things you print

That is the part worth sitting with. A statement of intended use and the representation in packaging and advertising are both choices made by whoever fills the jar. The identical nickel plated lobster clasp is an unregulated component in a jar labeled for a bench jeweler and a children’s product in a jar photographed with a child wearing the bracelet.

Which means you can do this to yourself

Nobody sets out to pull a children’s product safety rule onto a bag of crimp beads. It happens through a product photo, a kit description or an age suggestion added to a marketplace listing to widen the audience.

What these pages do

They set out the definition and its four factors, the three substantive limits that attach, the certificate and the mark, and then the shelf. Every page names the statute or the regulation it is reading from.

References

15 U.S.C. 2052(a)(2), the Consumer Product Safety Act definitions as amended by the CPSIA. A children’s product is a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger, determined by four factors: a manufacturer statement including a label if reasonable; representation in packaging, display, promotion or advertising; common recognition by consumers; and the Commission staff’s September 2002 Age Determination Guidelines. law.cornell.edu

15 U.S.C. 1278a, Children’s products containing lead; lead paint rule. Total lead content by weight for any part of the product: 600 ppm, then 300 ppm one year after 14 August 2008, then 100 ppm three years after, unless the Commission determines 100 ppm is not technologically feasible for a product or category. The Commission is to review and revise the limit downward periodically. law.cornell.edu

15 U.S.C. 2063, Product certification and labeling. Subsection (a)(2) requires a manufacturer or private labeler of a children’s product subject to a children’s product safety rule to submit sufficient samples to an accredited third party conformity assessment body and to issue a certificate based on that testing. Subsection (a)(5)(A) requires permanent distinguishing marks on the product and its packaging, to the extent practicable, identifying location and date of production and cohort information. law.cornell.edu

Written from the CPSIA and the CPSC regulations, not from a bench. Whether a particular product is a children’s product is a determination on the facts of that product, and state law in this area has not been surveyed here. Nothing on these pages is advice on a specific item.