Contaminated jewelry sold on Temu

Chinese giant Temu has removed low-cost jewelry from its platform after the show I discovered that the charms contained alarming levels of cadmium, a heavy metal that is extremely toxic to children.

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Our team ordered five pieces of costume jewelry from the Temu platform, whose selling price ranged from $4 to $15, for analysis. The results showed a high presence of cadmium in two of them.

In one case, a necklace sold for less than $5 on Temu was made of 94% of the heavy metal, which exceeds the Canadian standard for costume jewelry by 7,200 times.

“I had never seen anything like it,” says Gérald Zagury, a professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, who supervised the analysis at the request of I.

“It was cadmium covered with a thin layer of paint. Part of the jewel could break and could be ingested by the little brother of the teenager who owns the jewel,” adds the expert, who specifies that such a situation could cause serious health problems.

In a $14.95 unicorn pendant, the cadmium content exceeded the Canadian standard by ten times, according to our analyses. The object was small enough to be swallowed by a child.

A danger to children

While contaminated jewelry is harmless to adults, it can pose a risk to children if chewed or swallowed.

“The object will remain in the stomach for a certain time, so there will be prolonged exposure to the contaminants found inside,” explains Gérald Zagury.

Such a scenario would expose them to harmful effects on various organs, the nervous system, the reproductive system and development as well as on the immune system, according to Health Canada.

Attractive to young people

The situation is all the more worrying because this type of jewelry, “by its shape, its packaging, the marketing aspect, will be attractive to children under 15 years old,” says the expert, who has been interested in the toxicity of objects for children for more than ten years.

Faced with the results of our analyses, Temu removed these articles from its platform and launched an internal investigation.

In an email, the company assures that “spot checks are carried out to verify that physical products correspond to their descriptions and comply with applicable standards,” and adds that “penalties” are planned for non-compliant sellers.

Harmful charms

This necklace for less than $5 could be used as a disguise, according to our expert.
Analysis results: The cadmium concentration reached 940,000 mg/kg, while the Canadian standard is 130 mg/kg.

This $14.95 whimsical unicorn pendant was supposed to be a 925 sterling silver necklace. So it should have been 92.5% pure silver.
Analysis results: The cadmium concentration reached 1031 mg/kg, almost 10 times the Canadian standard of 130 mg/kg.

Avoid buying online

It is important to be wary of cheap jewelry sold on online platforms that do not undergo inspections, warns an expert, who sees this as a health risk.

Gérald Zagury, a full professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, recommends that parents choose retail stores for their purchases. These businesses are governed by Health Canada standards and inspections, he insists.

“When you’re dealing with jewelry that is very cheap, made in China and goes through such a platform, you have to know that these objects have not necessarily been tested. There is a risk associated with it,” he says.

Buying from a store isn’t a foolproof solution, however. In 2023, Health Canada issued three recalls of cadmium-contaminated jewelry sold at Winners, Home Sense and Marshall’s.