Mother Discovers That “Claire’s” Makeup Contains Asbestos

30-year-old mother Kristi Warner from Long Island recently tested a makeup kit that her 6-year-old daughter recently received as a gift and found that it contained Asbestos, the dangerous substance that has been banned from most products and building materials because it causes serious respiratory problems and even death in severe cases. The makeup kit was purchased from the popular store “Claire’s,” which has locations in malls across the country.

Warner thought that it was strange that the package did not contain any ingredients so she had a sample sent to a lab for testing. When she discovered that the sample was tainted with asbestos, she sent 17 products from the store to be tested as well and found that all 17 additional samples tested positive for asbestos.

Warner said that she was horrified when she got the results, “I physically sank, I ended up sitting on the ground, just trying to wrap my head around how something like that could end up in our home,” she said.

“Her response was, ‘Am I going to die? There’s no right answer to that because I don’t want to lie to her,” she added.

Warner went to the local news with her findings and the following report resulted in Claire’s pulling all of the products in question from their stores.

pic.twitter.com/GAXmxiCwEm

— Claire's (@claires) December 23, 2017

However, the public was not happy with the response, saying that this type of thing should have been tested for in advance.

Do we need to be worried in the UK? My daughter has one of the 17 makeup kits in question?

— James (@AdmiralPellaeon) December 25, 2017

O…M…G… Are you serious? Do you even have a quality inspection from your buyers? Multiple kits? #asbestos

— meowmix (@juanmeowmix) December 23, 2017

I️ hope you go out of business for putting millions of children in grave danger. They’re going to face big problems health wise 20-40yrs from now due to asbestos in your products! #fraud #abuse

— NATALIE GAL (@natashagalkina) December 27, 2017

You're full of it. A company of your size has the money and resources to perform proper quality control inspections. Sourcing products from other countries without testing and due diligence is at best, lazy, dangerous, and definitely negligent.

— News View (@NewsView100) December 28, 2017

Many of the products that we have been surrounded by our whole lives contain toxic and carcinogenic materials, and there is no telling how serious the consequences will be in years to come.

Items affected include the Bedazzled Rainbow Heart makeup set and Metallic Hot Pink Glitter makeup.

Claire’s also released a link to a page with a list of the products that are subject to being recalled.

However, one day later Claire’s began to backtrack, saying that their own independent testing showed no traces of asbestos.

“Testing by an independent certified laboratory show that the cosmetics tested to date are asbestos free. Out of an abundance of caution, additional testing is underway. We have also confirmed that the talcum ingredient supply is from a certified asbestos-free European vendor,” a statement from the company said on Friday.

The lab that Warner had the samples originally tested at was the Scientific Analytical Institute (SAI) in Greensboro, North Carolina. Asbestos testing is one of its specialties, and it is accredited by several US states.

Image: Daria Minaeva/Shutterstock.