Mass market retailer Kmart is removing all costume jewelry labeled “lead free” from its shelves after lead monitoring programs who tested the pieces found that some of the contained high levels of lead.

The jewelry comes the brand “Accessories” which specializes in low cost sets of costume jewelry that include matching necklaces and earrings. One charm was found to be 52% lead. Not exactly what I would consider lead free myself..

Kmart has decided to pull all jewelry labeled lead free from it’s shelves in an effort to avoid customer confusion.

The contaminated jewelry was tested by Mrs. Karla Johnson with a portable X-ray fluorescent analyzer she had brought home from work to practice with. She discovered that the lead free jewelry she had purchased actually contained 520,000 parts per million of lead. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering a ban on all children’s jewelry (apparently adults don’t need the protection) with a content level higher than 600 parts per million (.06%).