To follow on the Consumer NZ research on face paints… let’s talk about art products like face paints, finger paints and craft paints. Long story short… Don’t ever use these in ways other than they were intended, and don’t assume they are “safe”. Don’t use markers or tempera paint as face or body paint. Be wary of acrylic paints for kids. And for the love of God, please don’t let your baby stick brushes full of paint in their mouths.
Firstly, if you read my previous post about the Consumer NZ face paint investigations you’ll know that there are a LOT of toxic things that are banned from face paints but can still show up in them. But note there’s a good reason for the ban. Many chemicals can cause allergic and other skin reactions and health issues so are not safe to be in contact with skin for very long. So let’s take that a step further to realise that *craft* materials like tempera paints and markers do not even have those regulations because they are not intended for use on skin. So don’t use them like face/body paints.
Next, let’s talk about craft paints. As per usual, New Zealand isn’t in line with the best heavy metal limits for kids products. Our face paints don’t have any defined limits for toxicants at all (unlike even Australia) . Our tempera/poster paints only have the same limits as those for toys (which a recent ESR report showed was inadequate for painted toys so you can imagine how awful it is for a liquid paint). While our allowable lead for kids paints limits mostly match the US limits (90ppm for lead), they are farrrrr higher than the EU limits (0.5 ppm lead! 180x less than ours). And even Australia has a 25 ppm limit for finger and face paints that we don’t have. That “Age 3+” label is there for a reason: don’t let the littlies ingest them.
So lastly, we have the acrylic paints and some pastels. Lead isn’t normally a big an issue with these (for standard brands at least), but these can be high in cadmium, a potent carcinogen linked to kidney, lung and other cancers as well as other heavy metals. That “cadmium yellow” on the table at your kids’ summer craft programme? (yes this happened to me) actually contains cadmium. But somehow it can still be labeled “nontoxic” and non-hazardous! 
So unsuspecting schools will stock them. It’s important for people of ALL ages to know these are not safe to get on your skin or in your mouth. They are not safe for unsupervised or careless use by kids and should NOT be used by preschoolers at all.
Miscellaneous notes paragraph: Face paints and pastels have not uncommonly been found to contain asbestos too so there’s another reason for taking care to use reputable brands and use as directed. Additionally, all paints can have things like formaldehyde, ammonia and solvents. And it’s worth noting that vintage art paints can be very high in lead. “Flake white” is 50% lead. Even the paint tubes themselves used to be made of lead. And kids have been poisoned by deteriorating lead paint from artist’s wall paintings.
So have a look in your playcentre or kindy arts cabinet for any “cadmium yellow” or “cadmium red” paints. And next time you see a baby mouthing a paint brush covered in tempera paint it’s probably a good idea to replace it with a safer toy instead. Now you know.
