Toxic Purses II – A Response to Those Who Have Written to Me With Questions

First of all, I would like to say, hello! Many of you have written making reference to a particular designer’s handbag/luggage products, and I have to admit that I not only share your interest in her designs but that she is actually my favorite designer.

That being said, I am pleased to report that these same warning labels have not been on my apparel purchases because they were not applicable to apparel. I mention this because I want you to understand that labels about products are specific to that type of article and are not necessarily a reflection across all product lines of a brand.

A warning label on a product also does not mean that all types of that product pose some “risk” and in the case of handbags, that will largely not be the situation. In terms of whether or not you want to keep or return your bag, that is an individual question that I cannot answer for you. After all, if the warning label is going to cause you to worry about an impending illness – whether or not it is true that one would result – then you probably don’t want to be preoccupied about something when you could just return it to the store.

On the other hand, when you know more about why the bag was subject to the label in the first place and factor in the frequency of your usage of the bag, you may not be worried about keeping it at all.

As I mentioned in my Toxic Purses? article, the label is a result of a law out of the State of California (CA) called Proposition 65.

California’s Prop 65 in its simplest terms requires a label where a product contains a chemical compound that exceeds what CA calls the “Safe Harbor Level.” Safe Harbor determinations are based on a person’s exposure to a chemical, assuming daily exposure at that level (not that CA has explained what type of daily usage would equate to the level of exposure that would warrant the label). In the case of a purse, that is likely to be daily exposure as compared to a piece of luggage which more typically has sporadic use.

Prop 65 requires businesses to warn people about significant amounts of chemicals in the products they make where that chemical is both (1) known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and (2) is listed on the “Prop 65 List.”

Here in the U.S. we have both federal, i.e., nationwide, laws as well as state law. I can tell you from counseling importer clients that ship products to retail stores located CA that it can seem like one is “importing” into CA due to all of the state-specific consumer product laws governing products sold within the state.

CA has a complex set of consumer product safety laws which, in large part, simply do not exist in other states. It’s arguable however, that without guidelines on product usage and exposure levels, they are useless.

So why is this label which is only required in CA ending up on products sold in the UK? Pure economics.

It is more cost effective to label merchandise at the production level, i.e., at the factory, so that it is compliant across all potential retail markets than to either forego a sale due to a lack of labeling, or cause a lag in sales time due to a need to relabel.

Therefore, some importers prefer to undergo testing and labeling overseas at the outset to both save money and deter potential future barriers to international trade.

Questions/comments? Post below or email me at clark.deanna@gmail.com