Episode #43: Toy Safety 101 with Bill Baxter
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Today's podcast topic is a very important one because we will talk about toy safety. When you are creating your toy, you want to make sure it is safe for the age group it is intended for and that it follows all regulations of the countries in which you intend to sell your toy. This topic can be scary when you're just starting out, but the goal of today's episode is to connect you with the right resources to help make the process of understanding toy safety a little easier.
My guest today is Toy Safety Consultant, Bill Baxter. Bill has over 20 years of experience in the toy industry and is the Principal at Baxter Regulatory Solutions where he focuses on helping toy businesses meet and understand global safety and compliance regulations. Today, Bill will walk us through what he calls "got ya" moments in toy safety, areas that might trip you up along the way of developing your toy and your toy package. At the end of the episode, we dive into how safety regulations vary country by country. You'll learn why it's just as difficult to develop the same toy for a new market as it is to develop an entirely new toy!
Let's dive into today's mini masterclass on toy safety.
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Connect with Bill Baxter on LinkedIn.
Grab your copy of ASTM F963 The General Toy Standards.
Grab your copy of ASTM D4236 The Arts + Crafts Labeling Standards
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Azhelle 00:00
You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 43.
Intro/Outro + Jingle 00:06
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you know your host, a show always.
Azhelle 00:16
Hey there, people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It in The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach, calm middy. Listeners today is your lucky day because today's podcast topic is toy safety 101. So make sure you listen closely to this one because it's gonna be good. My guest today is Bill Baxter. Bill has over 20 years of experience in the toy industry, and is now the principal at Baxter regulatory solutions where he focuses on safety and compliance in the toy world. Bill, I know that with that introduction, the ears of my listeners are all perked up quite a bit right now, because everyone can always use a second set of eyes when it comes to toy safety. So MIDI listeners, please join me in welcoming bill Baxter to the show. Welcome to the show, Bill.
Bill 01:12
Thank you Azhelle it's great to be here. Yeah. So glad to have you here. Before we get started, I feel like you should just give a quick overview of your toy career because you are super interesting.
Azhelle 01:23
You actually started off as a designer, is that right?
Bill 01:27
That is right. It's actually sort of one of the strengths of my toy career, I think back in back in the last century, I went to art school for illustration and cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. And so cool part of that whole process, I discovered that my real love was doing small sculptures and models rather than painting, which was sort of what the program was designed for. When I graduated from there, I ended up with a portfolio of little models, and trying to sell that to an illustration world that hadn't yet discovered computers or was just discovering them. So everything was either a painting or 3d computer image. It didn't go really well. And I ended up falling in with toy inventors. There was in the mid 90s, sort of a small community of toy inventors. And I worked with a few of those making the models for their ideas. And after about two years of doing that, I got pulled back into school at the Fashion Institute of Technology, which has probably the best toy training available on the east coast. They do a What is it called a associate's degree.
Azhelle 02:45
It was that no, it's a bachelor's degree.
Bill 02:47
But that's followed up by the bachelor's at with in Toy design. I did the unfortunate way of bachelor's followed up by a second bachelor's. I have the same degree now I go into design program to Yes, yeah. But part of that then as you'll remember is there was one small sort of engineering course. When I took it, it was with a guy who we called Mr. G. But as part of that he had this handwritten engineering textbook. And in it, we talked about safety and regulatory compliance as it existed in the mid 90s, and plastics engineering, and some part of my brain kind of fell in love with the plastics and plastics engineering part of it. So a few years later, when I ended up out as a toy designer working for smaller companies and smaller toy companies were the kind of companies where everybody has to wear every hat. Mm hmm. I tended to fall in with the engineers and the overall production people. Rather than with strict I just want to make this look pretty design. Right? And so 2008 rolls around there is the big safety scandal that led to CPSIA, which I'm sure we'll be talking about a few minutes. And toy companies were swinging wildly looking for help at how to adapt to the new regulations. At that time, a little known toys store called Toys R Us. Yes, they they were looking for somebody who could be brought in house to sit with their private label designers and help them work to design safety in the toys from the get go. And as part of that, you know, reduced testing costs that would go along with the new rules of CPSIA. so Bureau Veritas, which is one of the major toy testing companies looked around for someone to fill this position to help Toys R Us and when they stumbled across me, I was looking for just a job as a product developer, product designer, brand manager kind of combo thing. It turned out to be a surprisingly good fit. Because what they had is lots of people who knew about regulations and science. What they didn't have were lots of people who knew the nitty gritty of actual toy business and toy production. So they figured they could take me, pull me into their regulatory boot camp, right. And it was quite the boot camp, and then put me on site at Toys R Us where I would take what they had taught me and apply it to the designers. And I suspect that some of my own personal interest in, you know, the science and plastics and the mechanics, right made me a good target for that approach.
Azhelle 05:53
So how do you get your initial understanding of the most important, you know, regulations in the toy industry? Tell us a little bit, maybe we should go back, maybe we should talk a little bit about the big safety scandal, the implementation of CPSIA, like tell us about all that.
Bill 06:10
Okay, so around 2007 2008, one of the major toy companies had a couple of recalls based on lead paint in toys intended for preschoolers. Okay. And at the end of the whole situation, it turned out that what had happened is they were testing the toys for lead. Mm hmm. They were testing the toys for safety. But in the middle of a production run, Mm hmm. Sometimes you run out of paint, right? And you have to swap out, you get paint to keep the production line running. And in that moment, you may or may not realize, well, at the time, it was not the way it is now, where people are tracking that. Mm hmm. And they didn't realize that in swapping out one paint for another paint, they were introducing a lead paint instead of a lead free paint. Mm hmm. That made big news along with some recalls over small magnets that were coming loose out of toys. And it sort of created an environment where everybody who had an axe to grind over toy or product safety was in an opportunity where Congress had to be seen doing something, right. And so they put together this gigantic bill to go through and overhaul toy safety, a lot of it were thing, and it was not just toy safety. It was also children's product safety for childcare articles like cribs, and highchairs and other small children's items. So what really came out of the CPSIA, or primarily a requirement that all children's product could not contain more than 100 parts per million LED. Mm hmm. Some types of children's products and toys could not contain certain restricted palates. And that toy safety standard, and certain other juvenile product standards. were given the force of law. So those were sort of the big changes to how the business was working before, up until that point, the toy safety standard and the other standards were voluntary. And so while the CPSC could say, if there was a problem with a toy, and you, when the recall happened, they could then turn around and find the manufacturer based on the fact that they didn't follow voluntary standards. That's allowed, but by making the toy standard, the law, they could say, you didn't test to the toy standard, we can just recall your product period. If they had a reason to do that, that does not happen often. I don't want to scare anyone, right?
Azhelle 09:10
Yeah, yeah, no, no, but it's good to know where it came from.
Bill 09:13
Yeah, I gave them a gave them a tougher level of regulatory power than they had before. And then the other piece that it added were some requirements to the toy companies that they had to produce a certificate where that toy company says that they understand the regulations and that they meet the regulations and this is where we got it tested. And I am, you know, this is the person who's responsible for maintaining those records and listening to that certificate. That is the children's product certificate. And that applies to any toy any product intended for children including toys. So everyone is supposed to have one of those. A lot of them major retailers Don't worry about collecting those they make their own based on requiring toys that they purchase to go through their testing program.
Azhelle 10:09
Mm hmm. Well, I want to get into that too. But before we go that deep, because I feel like if we go if we go that deep, people are gonna get lost. I love to talk about just different retailers testing programs, because people hated working with me at when I worked at Toys R Us. They were like, Oh, you guys, and you're testing, you're just out of control. But
Bill 10:30
there there is an argument that that was true. I was part of that mess. It wasn't.
Azhelle 10:36
I don't think it was a mess. I think it was just extra safe. It was just we're not taking any risks.
Bill 10:41
Exactly. There was a reason for it. And that was they were an easy target for lawsuits, and they were being extra careful. I never thought of them being an easy target for lawsuits. That's a good point.
Azhelle 10:52
Yeah, they were very careful. Like we put every warning like because there people might not know, but there are some warnings that like, you don't necessarily, you don't have to have it if it's over a certain age grade. Or you can just have it on the back of the box. But Toys R Us was like, Huh, it's on the front of the box is gonna be like an inch tall. And these warnings will be everywhere. We don't care. We don't need them. If it's recommended, it's gonna go there.
Bill 11:18
Yeah, that was pretty close to the approach. I would take issues with specific things. But But the general approach was, we want to be as careful as possible that we are crossing our T's and dotting our eyes because, well, it was the largest and sort of biggest named toy retailer in the United States, right? And if someone got injured on a toy they purchased at Toys R Us lawyers would look at that as a field day. It's a PR nightmare for them.
Azhelle 11:53
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. So I did, I did really want this episode to essentially be a toy safety one on one course. So we should probably roll it back a little more toward rabbit hole. So okay, let's start off simple. If I am just starting out as a toy entrepreneur, I have an idea for toy. Let's say it's a plastic toy, that I'm going to have some custom pieces to some custom molds. What do I need to know, just off the bat about toy safety,
Bill 12:26
the most important thing is to somehow get your hands on STM f 963. Mm, which is the US toy safety standard, the best way to get ahold of it is to go to the asdm website and purchase it from them. Yeah, it is a nonprofit organization that works with consumer advocates, manufacturers and regulators to come up with consensus standards. So that standards, everybody has some input in and it is agreeing on. And I actually am involved in that committee. And they work very, very hard to try to make it for a technical document as readable as possible. Yeah. And they try to cover as much as they can of what might apply to any sort of toy. And that makes it incredibly long for a product standard.
Azhelle 13:20
So now, for people that are just, you know, maybe they're like, you know, I don't want to do all that Bill. Can they just work with a consultant like you to tell them what they need to tell them what they need to look out for? If they show you a rendering or a sample of their product? Maybe someone like you could go through this document for them and say, okay, you need to be aware of this of STM, whatever and let them know.
Bill 13:49
Yes, that is a service I offer. I can go, I definitely do review products and try and point out the sections that will apply. In general, the chemical sections are always going to apply, right. And so what I will do is, well, I do it in a couple of phases, I can provide a service where people send me the product, I look at it and provide a list of the laws that might apply. Mm hmm. And it's targeted to the features of the product. So the more I know about the product, the better right, then at the next stage, we can do a deeper dive into the toy safety standard, which is what I'm familiar with. And basically go through section by section and point out, which are the most important sections you need to take care of. The one thing I can't do and the one thing that no good consultant should be doing is give you the standard because the standards are copyrighted documents. The ASTM works hard on them. And it's a nonprofit organization that needs to get money somewhere to keep functioning. Hmm. So that being said, paraphrasing it or explaining in simple terms is fine. But in the end, at some point in the process, your toy is going to need to be assessed to the whole standard. Normally, that's done by a third party testing company. And in the case of toys, it's required to be done by a third party testing company, usually once a year, even if that test result ends up being not applicable, not applicable, not applicable, not applicable, not applicable, you still need to have a third party look at it, because there are bad actors in the world who put out toys that are unsafe, intentionally or not. And the purpose of this law is to make sure that someone else is looking at it and say, Hey, wait, this has been checked out for safety.
Azhelle 16:00
So the next question is going to be, I know that when we're working, when I was working with toy companies, you're working for them developing product for them, the process is normally design it and then you set up a time to meet with whoever their safety on staff safety expert is. And you review your product line, you go through it, and you say these are these are the items, that's what they do, this is what they'll be made of. And this is our age grade, tell me what tests I'm going to need to run and what I might run into problems with maybe what warnings I'm going to have to have on the front or the back or the sides of the package to sell in whatever countries because it's again, people it's country specific. Yeah. All right. Got to bring that up a little later. I know you're sure for an entrepreneur who's just starting out, they don't have a list of factories that they already know that they're going to work with, that they've maybe worked with before, like a full on toy company would. So they're still in the phase where they're still looking for a factory partner. But at the same time, they want to have someone review their concept to understand if it's safe or not to proceed with and just to get an idea of what their expectations will will need to be. So my question to you is when someone's working independently, how would you recommend that they work with someone like you a consultant in safety and compliance?
Bill 17:21
Say a concept stage discussion is really important.
Azhelle 17:25
Okay.
Bill 17:26
Because there are features that any toy safety person and most product safety people are going to look at and go, yeah, you can't do that. But small magnets are an example. Yeah, because magnets are awesome. There's a reason we started putting them in toys, right as I was the toy designer. Yeah, we love them for everything. And then discovered that there are actually fairly dangerous for small children. Mm hmm. Or projectiles, things where somebody with experience in the industry can say that right, there is going to be a problem. Right. And that can usually be caught in an early design phase. Gotcha. There are a number of little gotchas sections of the toy standard, that don't seem like they should be a problem. But they're intended to stop things like finger entrapment. So there's certain sizes and shapes of holes that can be in the design. Normally, in that first stage, you can't evaluate what I'm calling those sort of gotcha question, right? Because you need to have the actual thing that you're planning to sell. And so you end up in that awful catch 22 of I can't tell you if this unsafe until the design is complete. I can't complete the design, because I don't want a tool until I know that it's gonna pass you can do a prototype. Right? And so, but that's still I mean, frequently production times are sorry, production, what is it called production lead times? Yeah, schedule syntech are very short. And they are counting on you know, they've already over promised this is supposed to be on a boat next month. And I don't know if this is the case for the listeners to this podcast. But frequently, you end up in a situation where you have made a design mock up, but you don't have time to make changes to it built into the schedule. So your only choice is approval. Ah, yeah, you know, then because the toy industry tends to be such a quick turnaround industry right? You end up back you know, you end up in this place where well we we can make changes, but it is going to completely think the schedule right?
Azhelle 19:41
So how do how would you recommend people go about choosing the right factories to work with and I bring this question up because there are so many large factories that you know people know about in the toy industry and and they're fine. They're used to working with the likes of Hasbro Mattel are smaller, but still big toys companies. But for entrepreneurs that are just starting out, they don't have mo Q's of 3000 pieces most times, you know, they might be starting out with just five 500 pieces. And when you get to that low of an mo Q, it starts to be hard to find a factory that is really experienced in Toy safety and really cares, you know, also. So like, what steps could entrepreneurs take to choose the right factories? What should they be asking about their safety standards, their certificates?
Bill 20:34
Well, the most important thing they should be asking is, do they already shipped toys to the market of distribution that you're talking about? Okay. And by that you mean like North America, Europe? like where are they gone? Yes. Because once a situation I've run into a lot is that the chemical standards for plastics are different in North America and the EU. Now, they're not necessarily that why no one is better than the other. But the specific rules and how they enforce those rules are different. And so you can have toys that ship all the time to Europe. But it turns out that they can pass the European chemical testing and can't pass the US chemical testing, because we do it a different way. Interesting. It's kind of an edge case, but I have seen it happen. And it's actually more common in regular consumer products than in toys. But how can you be sure like say they say, yeah, we ship to Japan all the time? How can you be sure they really do if you can ask them to have the bills of lading? Or have the test reports from that other customer? But yeah, frequently those are going to be guarded by their own NDA is true, you can see if they are ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 certified, those are two different standards. And they are about the general system of quality control and document control that are used in the organization.
Azhelle 22:04
Okay, wait, can you explain this two standards, ISO 9000 + ISO 9001.
Bill 22:09
ISO 9001 This is according to Wikipedia, is a family of quality management systems that helps organizations in general ensure that they are meeting customer needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. So what that boils down to is document control and showing that the documents actually match up with the processes. They're supposed to be documenting, and making an easy to follow system of rules for a regulator to come in and look at your quality system. Got it? And then 9001 that is the specific version of the quality management system intended for products and factories. Got it? So now, we talked a little bit about the process of when people should be reaching out to safety consultants to find out, you know, to review their concepts. And then what about the testing phase? Once you have, you know, you've refined your concept for safety, you found a factory that has the certificates that you need, they shipped to the areas that you're planning to distribute to. And now they're starting to develop your product, and you have like, let's say, a pre production sample. Now, is this the stage? Where testing happens? are we waiting for a full production sample? Before our product goes to testing? Well, there's two parts to that. So okay, most of the toy testing is destructive. So if you have only one sample, it's probably a bad idea to subject it to testing, right? Because they're gonna drop it, they're gonna take pliers and twist it till it breaks. So the portions of the standard that are about sizes and shapes, and there are design portions of the standard that you can look at and test on a mock up or prototype. And there's the reality that in my experience, prototypes tend not to be made of the same material that the final product is going to be made of, yeah, a lot of the destructive tests, you can't judge if a shape is going to pass the twisting test or the dropping test, until it's in the material that is going to be final production. Right. So the final certification testing of your toy needs to be done on final production. Got it. So how much time should they a lot for testing? The general answer for that is going to be two weeks. Yeah, it can be shorter if you want to spend lots of money because every lab is willing to essentially put all the samples at the front of the line if you pay twice as much, twice as much. Oh, it can be Yeah. Wow, that's let's hop Well, let's talk a little bit about
Azhelle 25:00
About pay like how, like, I know. So from my experience, it's usually around 2000 to 3000 for testing. But I also want to know a little bit about our different tests, do different tests cost different amounts?
Bill 25:13
Yes. Different test cost different amounts, the actual, probably what is your cheapest test is going to be your physical mechanical safety. Okay, that is probably going to run you in the US, somewhere between 200 and $500. But generally speaking, it's going to be one charge for the whole toy. Mm hmm. The chemical testing is where it gets really expensive, really fast. Okay. And no, and that's where you jump to the 2000 $3,000 numbers you're talking about. And I'm guessing that was probably in Asia, Mm hmm. Each different material in your toy needs at least one test, if a child can touch it, so it must have led, if it is plastic, it probably needs ballots. That's not 100% of the time, but it probably needs balance. It will be tested for heavy metal content, which is the other chemicals apart from lead, like cadmium, cobalt, barium, there's a list of, I believe eight of them in the US and 19 of them in the EU, that will probably apply to just about every material on the toy. And so if you use five different colors, suddenly you're looking at 15 tests, they've seen chemical tests. Yes. So let's assume it's $200 per test per color. Yeah, per color. So it's three tests on each color at $200, a test that gets you to 600 per color, five colors. And that gets you to 3000 3000. So if somebody is working with a consultant, would you be able to just kind of estimate for them? What tests or how many tests they're likely gonna have to run when they get to this testing stage so that they can budget for it. We can help with that. Yeah, I mean, in the end, there is the reality that sometimes that test labs have slightly different rules about what they're willing to composite, for example, the US allows, in some cases, you can do three samples in one test. And if that test passes, all three have passed, right?
Azhelle 27:28
Yeah, I've seen that before. And it freaked me out. I remember the first time I got a test report, and there was like so many samples in that, you know, they in every test report, they give you an image of the product that they test, and then it goes into the detail. And once I saw, like, several products in the image, and I was like, What's going on here? What is this madness?
Bill 27:48
Yeah. And so one of the ways to save money is to use the same materials across a line of products. Mm hmm. And then rely on the testing of the bloom, you know, the chemical testing one time? Yeah, or every blue in your line of six trucks? Yes. The other way is to try to reduce the number of paints, right. Another easy way is the use of four color labels. Why? Why does that help for color printing inks are exempt from many of the chemical requirements. So that's a good tip. And paper is exempt from the lead requirements and the heavy metals requirements in general, well, then you run into this situation, there's always the Oh, wait, but that people get stuck on because it's a simple printed game, with this beautiful glossy finish, that turns out to be a polypropylene, plastic. And suddenly that plastic needs to be tested, but it looks so nice. And so things like spot varnish coatings, we need to be scraped and tested. That's different than for color printing. Yeah. Oh, interesting. And then tampo, or screen printing? Mm hmm. Those are different than for color printing x, right. So those end up being treated as surface coatings, because you can kind of put any chemical you want in those inks to get different effects. Mm hmm. Whereas the four color printing ink is fairly well known. Normally vegetable based does not tend to have any of the chemicals we're looking for in it. And so the CPSC has sort of taken the position that since it's unlikely to be in there, and we all agree it's unlikely to be in there. We're not going to worry about it unless there's an actual problem, right? So if there is an actual problem, you're still stuck with the basic problem of if it turns out for some reason beyond anyone's control, that there is too much lead in your for color printing ink, I think is actually likely to happen. I need to be very clear about that. You would still be legally responsible for that situation.
Azhelle 29:59
So now that we talk A little bit about the factories and you know, their requirements. Do entrepreneurs have any control over the labs that they choose to use? Or the factory send their products to? So the simple answer is yes, they have all the control.
Bill 30:15
Mm hmm. But reality is always more complicated than that. So the thing you have to be looking for is that you'd need a lab that is cpsi accredited if you're going to sell United States. Mm hmm. The CPSC goes out, and they verify that labs have the proper lab quality systems, which is different than the ISO 9000 and not worth going into here. And they make sure that the labs are running the test correctly, and the results fall into the realm of expected parameters. Right. But then every so often, they have to be re inspected to keep their accreditation up. So as part of CPS ay ay ay ay, the CPSC was given the job of making sure that they checked out labs to make sure the lab was a good third party lab. And they're the only ones who are allowed to do the testing that supports a children's product certificate
Azhelle 31:13
say they are working with smaller factories, because they have lower mo Q's, but they want to work with a bigger testing lab. So say they want to work with bureau VISTAs. Can they insist that the factory send their products to that lab? Yes. So they can insist on that they can say, as part of sort of the initial agreement, one thing you should try to do is try to work into the initial agreement, that the factory is somehow financially responsible for failures to these requirements, about list out the toy requirements, failures to which toy requirements like how do you choose which ones to list out? you'd start by being as broad as possible and trying to say ctfa requirements f 9633? Yeah, all of the six, three requirements.
Bill 32:06
Right? And if you can get them to take that on, that's awesome. Yeah. But usually, they're going to come back and say, we need to know the specific chemicals that aren't allowed to be there. And then you would go through and say, led phalates and the various chemicals under heavy metals in the F 963. And if you're going into Europe, it'll be a super long list of individual chemicals. But if you can get the factory to agree to be in some way financially responsible, if these chemicals are found in it after production. Yeah, that is your best defense, because then they have skin in the game to make sure it's not there. Right. It's hard to do that. It's super hard. I don't want to give anyone any illusions that you just walk in and say it, right. And they go oh, yes, whatever you say, no problem. Yeah. Because they're going to come back and tell you no one does that. And that's not true, right? That is specifically not true. But like any business agreement, it's a matter of what leverage who has on whom. Mm hmm. And so ideally, they will turn around and they will start working with a lab to test raw materials to make sure that the chemicals aren't there at the start, right. Then at the end of the process, when you have either the ham sample or the finished product coming off the line, you can say you can as the entrepreneur go to bV or an sts or an IPS or your offense, or you know, any one of the big labs deal directly with their person, ideally, wherever your factory is. So probably in Asia, fill out the test report directly, send it to your factory, along with the address the samples need to go to, they should be able to just send them to the test lab. And then the lab is dealing with you directly as the customer, the function of the factory is production and shipping to the test lab. Mm hmm. I haven't run into particular problems where the factory turns around and says we have this relationship with whatever lab and they give us a good price. We want to test through them. Personally, I've never run into any problems doing that. Right. I have heard stories of other people running into problems doing that. Yeah, you know, I don't know what's going to be true in anyone's particular case. But that has always worked well. For me, I've never run into a situation where funny when it goes to their lab, there's no lead in it. And when it goes to my lab there is letting Mm hmm.
Azhelle 34:38
And I'm from what you're saying. I'm also curious, like, say you are producing a plastic toy with a custom mold. If a If a lab already has, let's say a blue plastic material that's been tested and approved, then you could, you know, theoretically use that same material in your toy without having to retest Is that right?
Bill 34:56
That is correct, but then that's where good documentation comes in. You need to have a good trail that shows Blue 104, whatever you want to name that blue. Hmm, it's used in Toy A, B and C.
Azhelle 35:09
But if the toy A, B, and C is not your toy, like a competitor's toy, like say it's an open market Blue 104. See, that's not good practice. Just because not, but just because, say you're ordering Blue 104 see from the open market, but then in order to improve cycle time, your factory adds dexy ribo. Physical Flacco. I don't know, okay. And that turns out to have led in it, right? You know, then unknowingly, you're not really checking the material that's in your toy, right. So you should just develop your own materials for your own specific toy lines. You can just go open market,
Bill 35:51
you can go open market, you just need to test it for your stuff so that you have good traceability that the test is what's actually in your toy.
Azhelle 35:58
Oh, like I see. So like, say you're pulling plastic from open market or more. I feel like this applies more to actually makeup. Yeah, like, right, you know, like, they already test, they test certain number of colors, and then you use it in your product, but you don't retest those colors and makeup because it would just be too expensive.
Bill 36:16
That's true, but there's more regulation around when when you say a name of what a color is and makeup. Uh huh. It needs to be a specific thing that is federally mandated. So like if it's blue lake number five, a particular thing at a particular level of purity. Oh, interesting. By the way, I don't know just toys.
Azhelle 36:42
I didn't know that. I honestly, I can't stand working on makeup. Because I mean, in the toy industry Anyway, I'm sure in the real adult makeup world, it's plenty of fun. But in the toy industry, it's the worst because you get like, you know, you have a great idea like, Oh, I'm gonna make this amazing makeup kit. It's gonna be so cool. It's going to be shaped like a bird. And it's gonna just have bird colors or something. And then your factory sends you the list of approved makeup swatches, and you're like, Oh,yeah, they're four of them. So I can't have like five shades of green unless I want to run like $30,000 worth of testing.
Bill 37:23
Yeah, and yeah, no, you're right. Absolutely. And the other side of that is, the scary part that you probably don't want to think about is that means what? There we allow a higher level of toxicity and makeup for adults.
Azhelle 37:39
Oh, yeah, I totally know. I know. I know. No, I have thought about this. Honestly, for me, I'm just waiting for the day that they regulate makeup and stocks crash and I can invest. And that's my day.
Bill 37:55
You can actually go on the FDA website and look up where they have impounded goods and why? Uh huh. And I've actually been involved in some makeup impounding situations there's makeup impound Yes, were imported. makeups. There are chemicals that are used in makeups globally that are banned in the US. And if somebody doesn't know that, and they import a makeup using one of these colors, the you know, inspectors just literally look at the label on the outside and go, yep, lock it up. Oh, that's so interesting. Honestly, that sounds like more regulation than I realized we have. Okay, so I guess I'm, I guess I'm impressed. Just for anyone who's jumped ahead. We are now speaking about adult makeup, not kids makeup, plenty of regulations and kids. Okay, we're talking about adult makeup now. Okay. Yes. Oh, very interesting. Okay. All right, back to toys back to toys. So I do want to talk a little bit about packaging assessments. This was something I experienced a lot at Toys R Us. But I just wanted you to talk a little bit about packaging assessments, if that's something that you would recommend entrepreneurs get done. And then what it looks like when you actually get to the production stage. And then your your packaging is being tested at a lab. In the perfect world. What the lab wants to see is they want to see a product in its final package. And in the most perfect of all worlds. They want it to all be passing because nobody likes to fail not even the labs. Oh, I didn't know. Like, I thought they like to fail because then they get paid more money. But okay. Frequently, they don't frequently. You know, if you're working with a big retailer, they have a deal where some level of retesting is free. Yeah, no, but these are small entrepreneurs. So yeah, they are there a better target for fails. But yeah, but honestly, having worked in many lab environments for the past 10 years, fails, or just how Because people rightfully complain when they get to fail that something was done wrong, right? Because they thought they were acting in the right, right? And sometimes they are. So it's not something anyone wants to have happen. So in a perfect world, you receive the product, you receive the package. And you can look at the product and say, hey, these are the features on the product. These are the required warnings. This is the required type size, this is the required location. Yeah. And just go through it and go Yes, yes, yes, no, the place where it gets complicated is when you are trying to review the packaging before you have the product in hand. So you can look at the features and say this is required that is required. This is not Mm hmm. In general, toys don't have warnings unless they have features. Hmm, that's nice quote, I think it's a very general way to put that because, in general, you want to design the hazards out of the toys from the beginning. So the biggest example where that isn't the case, the small parts, where the problem with a toy for a three year old is that they're not going to eat it, but their little sister might. And so we use the warning small parts to alert the parents that there is a potential issue if there's a small child there, because that's a normal situation. Yeah, wait, actually, let's talk about small parts. Why do some people use it? And some people don't like what is that about? Well, the rules on when to use it are actually very specific that the product needs to be for three plus, yes, in the US, these small part warning is only needed if there is a small part in the box as received. That's before testing. Mm hmm. In Europe, the rules are different. So if you're making a package for both places, in Europe, if you do the use and abuse testing, and a small part gets liberated, right, then you're required to have it on there. But you're not if that doesn't happen. Interesting, that could explain some things. Yeah. So it's possible. There are situations where they're like, we don't want to make a second package for Europe. So we're just gonna put all their requirements on this box. Right? Yeah. And if you put the US Small part warning on you've pretty much got Europe covered once you put the onion kid on.
Azhelle 42:24
Wait, wait, explain what that is. Sorry.
Bill 42:26
Oh, there is the onion kid. That is my nickname for the European three plus symbol. Uh huh. is it's got a little little red and white circle with a little child, that hair kind of comes off in a swoop. looks a little like an onion.
Azhelle 42:42
Oh, he does.
Bill 42:43
And so one time, I was looking at it with a couple engineer friends and we were working on packaging for toys that yes, we need this warning that says no small quantities of onions.
Azhelle 42:58
Oh my god. Yes. We were talking about packaging assessment. Sorry. So Right, right.
Bill 43:04
So the big, the big concern. And so that is the most common case where we have a relatively normal situation that needs a warning. In other cases, you're not going to include a pool toy warning, unless it's a pool toy. You're not gonna include a bath toy warning unless the bath toy, you're not gonna include a crib toy warning, let's decrypt toy. And all of those are spelled out in the ASTM f 963. So if for some reason you don't want a compliance consultant to help you, which I recommend compliance consultants, they're great. But there is a section on warnings you just go through the first warning, no, this is not a crib toy. No, this is not an inflatable toy. No, this is not a and you just go through them one after the other and cross them off. And anything that's leftover goes on your toy. Um, it goes on the packaging, usually. So the problem that comes in with labs, when labs or when consultants are reviewing packaging is if you just hand us the package. We can't go through that process because we don't know what the features are right. In a few rare cases. There's a lot of special cases in product safety, and a few rare cases, you need a warning based on features that aren't clear features of the toy. So a good example of that is adult assembly required. If you can put the toy through all the safety testing and it passes disassembled. You don't need to say adult assembly required you only need to say it when there's a safety hazard that exists before the toy assembly that assembly makes go away. Normally, that's sharp screws. I mean, just traditionally, that's the most common safety hazard that requires an adult assembly instruction. The other reason to say adult assembly is because it's freaking complicated to put together and you need an adult to put it together. Although my experience has been toys are clever. Kids are clever about that.
Azhelle 44:57
And the other hard part is when you have something like sharp screws and a toy, but it's actually a toy made for, let's say a six year old? How do you go about defining that age grade, you know what I mean? because technically, the pieces inside of it wouldn't be okay for a six plus toy. But when it's assembled like you're saying, then it becomes a six plus toy.
Bill 45:19
So a lot of how that gets solved in practice is that those kinds of assembling kits are often not treated as toys. If the thing that you're putting together isn't a toy, if it has no play value, Once assembled, it's a children's product kit, it still needs to meet the chemical requirements of CPSIA. But it doesn't have to meet all the toy safety standards. And then Normally, if you're doing a craft kit like that, you're going to age graded eight plus, right? Right. The idea is that if something is really appropriate for an eight year old, particularly if they need to read instructions is a good sign, you know, read complicated instructions, is a good sign for an eight year old, if there's a lot of parts to it, it's a good sign that's for an eight year old. If it's something that's not appealing to little kids, like a radio, you know, a build your own ham radio kind of thing. That's going to tend to be a higher age grade than something like paint your own horsey, right? Where the kid is going to play with the horsey once they painted it, it's fairly obvious. And are those things like the things you're just mentioning? Like longer instructions and more complicated or more pieces to put together? Are those detailed somewhere in guidelines? Or is that just something that you know, from your experience? Well, the CPSC has done a really good job of hiring developmental experts, many of them are psychologists, many of them are what they call human factors, experts, and they have spent the past 15 years or so putting together a brand new set of age rating guidelines that just came out last year. Oh, wow. Which updated the previous ones from the 70s? And where do we get that the CPSC just gives them away for free on their website, where where cpsc.gov. And then you go down to small business information, and then you go down to toys. And there's a lot of great information on the cpsc.gov website.
Azhelle 47:25
Awesome. Thank you so much for that. Okay, bill to wrap up. I mean, it's not really a wrap up, because it's actually a huge question, probably the most important one of the episode. But could you talk to us about the three biggest safety regulations that might cause entrepreneurs headaches for toys intended to be distributed in the US?
Bill 47:45
Okay, well, I'm gonna start with the asdm F 963. That's just the most important standard slash regulation governing toys. second biggest is the CPSIA, and that is the lead requirements, the documentation requirements. Those are both things we've talked about extensively in this conversation, because they really are the defining rules in the US. The third one is kind of a weird side note, state labeling regulations for stuffed toys.
Azhelle 48:18
Oh my god. So if you're making a plush toy, you have to register it in individual states. It's horrible. Yeah. And it's not something people realize, unless they've been in the business. And so suddenly, you're getting a letter from Missouri, asking way, why haven't you registered? Where's your money? Mm hmm. And there are services that help with that. Lots of them. So name name one, just so that we have we give them some good takeaway, in case somebody listening is like I'm doing a plush right now.
Bill 48:49
There is what is that labels.com American law label, there really are about half a dozen. Those are both two good ones.
Azhelle 48:57
Oh, that's good. That's good enough two. So labels calm and American law, American law labels, American law labels.
Bill 49:04
And if you're producing for one of the major companies, they may require you work with a particular one of these companies. And that is one that I think always catches people off guard. And I don't know, similarly, if you are doing electronics, there are some electronics rules. Like what if you're using a microchip you may need to label for the FCC. And these days, if you're adding a Bluetooth and I bet half your entrepreneurs are Mm hmm. That is actually a transmitter and requires even more testing and labeling interesting.
Azhelle 49:37
Wow. Wow.
Bill 49:38
Yeah. electronics are sort of one of those categories that I would say it's gonna require extra regulation. And you want to be aware of that before you go into a category like that. Right. So how would those giant big headaches of safety regulations vary if you're going to distribute to another region like Europe, well, Europe actually runs fairly similar. The most important takeaway about selling to multiple regions is that every region, generally every country separately regulates toys. And it is probably going to be as big a headache for every country you try to go into. So when your sales partner comes to you and says, hey, I've got this great opportunity in Russia stop, realize it is going to be as big a challenge to get whatever you're currently making into Russia, as it is to develop an entirely new toy. Oh, that is going to be true of just about any country there are. As always, there are a few small exceptions. Europe is an interesting exception, because it used to be that way for the What is it now 26 different European nations. But since they got together into the European Union, you now only need to meet the union requirements, and you can distribute in any country in the Union, they have an equivalent to our ASTM F963. Their toy safety standard is called n 71. And the N 71 is just like what I said about the ASTM F963, six, three, it covers the many situations that can come up and all sorts of different toys. So it's very long, and you go through it, and only worry about the sections that apply to your toy. Mm hmm. The most important way that they are different from us as they don't have a category of children's products. So it is normal for them to whenever possible, treat a children's product as much like a toy as they can. So if you're making a desk for children, your marketing partner may ask if it's CE certified. And that means is it tested to the toy standard, their rules are actually very similar to ours, where products for children don't have to meet the 20 standard. But that's just the way they do things over there, there is a lot more dependence on E and 71. As the basis of safety across all children's products, I would say the next things to be aware of in the EU, are they have a strong preference for having a local distributor. So you need to have somebody in the EU that you're partnering with to be sort of the face of your company over there. And then the final EU thing that people don't realize is their documentation requirements are much stricter, so that you are required to hold on to much more documentation into what they call a technical file or a technical folder. And so that should be things like design drawings, bill of materials, and all of the EU test reports a document called a safety assessment, where you go through and just review your toy, look at each possible hazard it could have and explain what you are doing to mitigate that possible hazard. These are all things that are supposed to be collected in a technical folder, that will probably not see the light of day, unless there is a problem with your toy. So you're supposed to have it on hand if they ask for it. And then Europe also has a much bigger chemical requirement regime that applies to all of their products. So they require more testing on non toys for chemicals. They call this reach our E a ch. And those chemical tests also apply to toys on top of the chemical tests that are specific to toys. Wow. Okay, thank you. And when about in Canada, what are we going to look out for here? The good news is Canada, Canada is it's almost on par with the US, right? Yes, it's a lot like the US. They just have, they have a couple little gotcha rules about exactly how certain tests are performed, that occasionally catch people off guard. But in general, if you are compliant in the US, you're probably compliant in Canada. They are like the US focused on lead ballots. And then they have a slightly different method for doing the heavy metals, chemical testing. And when you get into the sort of special case toys, they have different rules for electronics, different rules for chemicals and toys, different rules for all of those things. I mean, when I say chemicals and toys, I mean toys that are primarily chemical, not just you know, a toy is made up of chemicals by default. I mean, like paints or puddys or slimes.
Azhelle 54:50
Right. Okay. All right. That's great. Oh, I think it was what would be your big advice and takeaway to aspiring toy entrepreneurs out there.
Bill 55:01
My big advice would be don't let this scare you.
Azhelle 55:06
Dont let this whole episode scare you. Sorry about that.
Bill 55:12
Yes, these. These are all situations that can be tackled. If you have an idea and you're pushing it through, you can learn this stuff. It's not actually hard. And you only have to learn the parts that apply to you.
Azhelle 55:28
That's great. I think that's great advice. Don't be afraid you can do this. If you ever feel overwhelmed, you can head over to the toy coach comm and grab Bill's contact info, so that maybe you can hire a toy safety consultant to help you work through the harder details. All right. So thank you so much for coming on the show today, Bill, I learned some things I'm sure my listeners learned a lot. So thank you so much for coming on the show today, Bill.
Bill 55:56
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Azhelle 55:58
Yeah, any time. Wow, I know that was a lot of information around toy safety. And it can seem overwhelming. So if you weren't able to take notes, don't worry, I've got you covered, head over to thetoycoach.com/43. To grab my toy safety 101 checklist created to go along with this episode. That checklist is going to be a helpful guide if you don't know where to start with toy safety. And it will provide direct links for you to grab your very own copy of the toy safety standards, a STM f 963, and the art material standard asdm D 4236. Now I want to be honest with you, these documents are extensive and it's not an easy light read, it takes a bit of focus. But don't you worry, you've got this, I believe in you. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, you can always work with a toy safety and compliance consultant. And if you're looking to connect with Bill, head over to the show notes, so you can grab his contact info again. That's the boy coach comm forward slash 43. As always, thank you so much for joining me here today. I know there are many podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one. If you love this podcast and you haven't already left a review, I'm going to ask you to please do that right now. I love reading your positive reviews. It puts a huge smile on my face and gives me the motivation to show up each and every week to serve you with more valuable toy information. Well Until next week, I'll see you later toy people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle 57:44
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