Asbestos Found In Claire's Makeup Products For Children, Prompting Recall

Claire’s, the popular kids’ accessories chain, announced it was pulling more than a dozen items from store shelves Saturday after a Rhode Island family said it found cancer-causing asbestos in their 6-year-old daughter’s makeup.

The mother of the child, Kristi Warner, 30, said she was concerned about the ingredients in the glitter makeup kit purchased at a local chain of Claire’s. The Barrington mother then sent the make-up to an independent lab in North Carolina to be tested, NBC affiliate WJAR reported.

The tests found that the product had tremolite asbestos, a toxic cancer-causing material, in it. Warner was an operations manager at Deaton Law Firm in Providence, whose firm represented clients diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that affected the heart and lungs, often as a result of exposure to asbestos.

The law firm purchased 17 more Claire's products from nine different states and sent them for further testing, after Warner sent them the test results. The tests ordered by them from the Scientific Analytical Institute came back positive.

Sean Fitzgerald of Scientific Analytical Institute, the scientist who conducted the tests, said he was shocked that he found tremolite asbestos in every single product.

According to the National Cancer Institute, exposure to asbestos, a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals, over a long period of time was a major cause of malignant mesothelioma, a disease in which malignant cancer cells grows in the thin layer of tissue that covers the lung, chest wall, or abdomen.

"I physically sank,” Warner told WJAR, describing her reaction after she got the results for the tests. “I ended up sitting on the ground, just trying to wrap my head around how something like that could end up in our home.”

“In the work that we do, we've come across contaminated cosmetics, but you just assume that a children's product would be safe,” she added.

Warner also expressed her fears that other children who may have used the products could be exposed to the harmful substance.

“The fact that the majority of the products came from the store shelves in the last two weeks means that there are other children being exposed,” said Warner.

The accessories chain put up a statement on its website after the recall saying:

"At Claire’s the safety of our customers is of paramount importance, and we are passionate about the safety and integrity of our products. We work closely with our vendors to ensure our products are tested and assessed in line with the relevant country regulations and guidelines. As a result of today’s inquiry from WJAR-TV, we have taken the precautionary measure of pulling the items in question from sale (pictured below), and will be conducting an immediate investigation into the alleged issues. Once we have more information and have the results of the investigation we will take the necessary action. If you have items you wish to return in the interim period we will issue a refund."

It also released a full list of the products that were recalled from stores.