We hope you all enjoyed your Winter Holiday.

New Products: We are bringing in the New Year by preparing our inventory and new designs to be in compliance with the new cpsia regulations. In the meantime we have our Valentine’s Day Panda design ready to go for the upcoming holiday.

In The Public Eye: Happy Panda products were reviewed by: Jamie from Precious Peas, Jessica from Mom Fuse, Jamie from Mom to 3 Angels and Elizabeth from Mom Reviews Click on the hyperlinks to read any of their full reviews.
We are available on Twitter if you would like to follow.

Events and Contests: We were in the holiday giving spirit this month! Our monthly newsletter subscriber winner was Daniel Sanderson. We had winners at Shake The Salt, Bird on a Wire, Pink Lemonade, Mom to 3 Angels, Jamie’s Precious Peas and our own Cyber Baby Shower.

Twitter winners:
@PlusSizeMommy
@toteandtee
@berriesweetest
@TheAngelForever
@psychotichouse

Features: Pamela Kramer was interviewed on Blog Talk Radio by Phyllis Pometta from Baby Swags.

Upcoming: We are helping to sponsor the Baby Fest hosted by A Frog in My Soup.

Pamela Kramer

Christy Rooney author of Shake The Salt

Liz Gilbert author of Pink Lemonade

Debbie Lawrence author of Bird on a Wire

It was a pleasure working with each of you ladies this holiday season. We hope that our products have made your winners very happy. Thank you for inviting us to share in the giving spirit.

One commentor had brought up an interesting question that sent up a red flag. What is the turn around time for 3rd party testing? This is a question that was missed during previous research. Phil Rodgers gave a turn around time of 10 days. Again, this is only for the Happy Panda product line and you should inquire about your own turn around time for your own product. This is a very important piece of information.

Another issue we are going to face is the labeling requirements. The deadline for the new labeling requirements does not take effect until August 2009. Hopefully cpsia will give more detail in regards to how one of a kind pieces will meet the labeling demands.

Avery Dennison is already providing a solution to these labeling demands. We are not endorsing Avery but simply providing more research to manufacturers trying to meet the latest cpsia regulations. The cost will be another research topic in the future.

Many have asked how we plan to handle our product line with the upcoming changes and deadlines required by cpsia. The XRF is an instrument that we have access to and we will be able to scan our existing inventory and provide the general conformity certificate. This method will allow us to continue to offer hazardous free apparel to our customers. We will no longer offer any NEW bibs or gowns in order to remove the high costs of phthalates testing.  These two steps will allow us more time to develope new product, designs, methods and labeling while we wait for more clarification.

Thank you,

Pamela Kramer

Bruce and I have worked together during the pre-publishing stage of his book. As a company listed in his upcoming book it seemed appropriate to let him know what is coming for many manufacturers of children’s products with regards to cpsia. He has asked me to post his reply to our blog and to let folks know that he is more than happy to correspond about this issue. His name is linked directly to his email address below.

“I am the author of a book entitled, Made Here, Baby! (Amacom Books-NYC), due out in late April 2009. Our Web site, www.madeherebaby.com should be “live” at the beginning of March. For more than two years, I have located and interviewed American manufacturing companies making all kinds of children’s products. The 1st edition of the book will detail 417 companies. There are many more companies and I hope to get to them as quickly as I can for a future edition. This is an extremely complex issue and I believe the answers lie somewhere in the middle. I cannot condemn our government regulators for wanting to impose tough new laws. On the other hand, American-manufacturing companies that have been safely handcrafting children’s toys for decades upon decades, should not be lumped in with multi-nationals who have knelt at the feet of the bottom-line and have cut corners to bring us hazardous toys and many other products. Make no mistake about it; a tour of the CPSC Web site will show that the vast majority of products that have been recalled have been imports. I am not “China-bashing,” nor am I flag waving, I am just stating a fact. Should there be testing of children’s toys? Of course! But it is not necessary to use a 500 pound sledge hammer in order to nail in a tack. I have interviewed American craftspeople, for example, who will go out in the woods on their farms to select an aged piece of fruit wood, then have incredible skill to turn it into an amazing toy. They will then polish and then rub that wood with a safe edible oil. The toys are more like works of art than anything else. Yet children love them. Parents and grandparents love them. These craftspeople are extremely aware of the “burden” on their shoulders to make safe toys — after all, they are your neighbors. Compare that to a children’s costume necklace made overseas using cheap labor often under brutal conditions. Many of these pieces of jewelry present choking hazards and chemical hazards. Or how about a toy made by a similar overseas company that has been “inadvertently” painted with a lead-based paint or coated with another toxic chemical? Can we not adopt a sane set of parameters? Should a small American company that is breaking its back and barely making payroll, to make extremely safe toys be thrown into the same bucket as a conglomerate that has repeatedly made cutting corners an art form? I don’t think so. Let’s all take a deep breath and truly examine the issue and all of it implications. In this awful economic time. with millions of Americans out of work, is it necessary to threaten the livlihood of small American companies that have never had any kind of safety violation, because of multi-nationals who have had millions of toys recalled?”
Bruce Wolk

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NAM - National Association of Manufacturers have come together in a petition addressed to Todd Stevenson Director, Office of The Secretary U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The 15 page petition is well put together and I would urge everyone involved or concerned about the new regulations to read it. The following is a portion from page 5 -

“For example, a garment manufacturer may use fabrics like cotton and cotton thread with no or very low total lead to make thousands of SKUs of children’s t-shirts. Absent an exemption, the garment producer may have to test each different SKU for lead – testing the identical material thousands of times. Or, a garment maker might purchase 100,000 zippers and use the zippers in a variety of children’s apparel, perhaps involving 10,000 SKUs. Common sense tells us that it must be acceptable for garment manufacturer to rely upon the zipper manufacturer to certify compliance on all of its zippers, rather than to needlessly require the zipper and each other of the multiple components used in various garments to be tested 10,000 times because it is used in 10,000 different garments. Absent clear guidance to the contrary the statutory language could be interpreted to mandate 10,000 different tests. These are the types of practical problems that manufacturers, importers and retailers face and that have enormous cost implications at a time when we are faced with the deepest economic recession in decades. Testing costs, in turn, will be passed on to consumers.”

This petition provides more examples like this pertaining to jewelry, shoes, paper products, books and more. We need answers and I hope this petition will aid in obtaining those answers. This petition is backed by the following organizations:

American Apparel & Footwear Association
Association of American Publishers
Book Manufacturers Institute, Inc.
Fashion Jewelry Trade Association
Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association
National Association of Manufacturers
National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers
National Retail Federation
Retail Industry Leaders Association
Printing Industries of America
Specialty Graphic Imaging Association
Toy Industry Association

You can read the petition in it’s entirety here - Petition for Rulemaking under CPSIA Section 101

Special thanks to Kathleen from Fashion-Incubator for Tweeting the petition so that we could read it.

After my extensive research with the third party labs I began to wonder what the screen printing and textile industry thought of this situation. I made a phone call to Scott Fresner from U.S. Screen Print & Inkjet Technology and spoke with Bill. This is what Mr. Fresner had to say -

“Have you contacted your ink supplier. About 20 years ago the CPS mandated plastisol or ink for children’s garment be lead free. In the last few years they have all or mostly gone to Phalate free ink because of pressure from large customers like Nike, Russell and others.   You should contact Union, Rutland or whoever you are using and get their certification for the ink.  At least that should remove one of the costs.

If you contact SGIA, the person to contact is Johnny Shell their technical services director. This will be old news to them and they will have answers for you.

Good luck,

Scott Fresener”

His response made me think more clearly and the required testing for lead was no longer making sense. I read on the Fashion-Incubator-

“What must be tested: Lead
All sewn products intended for use of children 12 and younger must be unit tested for lead at this time. Lobbying groups are looking for exclusions for certain categories of goods like tee shirts. Toward the end of proving lead is not a dangerous element in kid’s apparel, I have been asked to make a request of you. If you have any lead or phthalate test results from a certified laboratory, please send them to me and I’ll pass them along.”

I made that phone call to SGIA (Specialty Graphic Imaging Association) and finally spoke with Marcia Y. Kinter Vice President - Government and Business Information. She has been following along and writing her own posts.

After explaining the situation of my business and asking how the cpsia would effect me she made it clear to me that apparel does not have a definitive yes or no answer to lead testing. She instead pointed me to the issue of Phthalates and referenced this pdf. We spoke of the section that discusses what can go inside the mouth of a child under three. If you are a parent you know that list is long. As I review my own product line, Happy Panda carries two styles of garments that would go in a child’s mouth, bibs and the sleeves of a gown. I could easily remove those from my line without a problem.

We also discussed the testing for lead in zippers, buttons, etc. She shared with me that she too would like more clarification and will be writing letters of her own before the holidays.

What does this mean? To me, it means that there is hope. I realize that petitions are great but we need to speak to the leaders in organizations within our own industry. I encourage you not to substitute our findings for your own but to inquire and find out what you can as it pertains to your own product.

These posts are based on my own product line and the information that I am obtaining as I read more and speak with leaders within my own industry.  I need to research more to find out where Fashion-Incubator found their information about sewn products needing to be tested for lead. <Kathleen from Fashion-Incubator has left a comment below> My posts will always contain links for you to read what I find for yourself.  If you have information that can be shared please leave me a comment. What’s my next step? I’m going straight to the written ACT!

Thank you,

Pamela Kramer

Now that we understand what the new regulations mean for manufacturers it’s time to dig a little deeper. Let’s say for argument sake that there is no revision of the bill and it stands as written. Happy Panda is a private label and we use screen printing techniques on our clothing line including the garment labels.

First we need to find a testing facility and view the list of accredited testing laboratories provided by the cpsia.

• Lead Paint, 16 CFR Part 1303 (effective date 12/21/2008)
• Full-Size Cribs, 16 CFR Part 1508 (effective date 01/20/2009)
• Non Full-Size Cribs, 16 CFR Part 1509 (effective date 01/20/2009)
• Pacifiers, 16 CFR Part 1511 (effective date 01/20/2009)
• Small Parts Rule, 16 CFR Part 1501 (effective date 02/15/2009)

As a clothing manufacturer our clothing line should fall under the lead paint testing deadline because none of these other choices would make sense because we do not create cribs or pacifiers. Happy Panda is a Made in USA brand so we would not choose to send it to a testing facility outside the U.S. We narrowed down the search of the testing facilities and counted 15 accredited labs. I’ve seen postings on blogs that the costs for testing range from $100-$4,000 per test. It’s time to make some phone calls and get a real price range based on our clothing collection. First up!

Great guy and oh so helpful! I recommend speaking with him if you have questions about testing. He has been testing for several weeks for several companies. He is testing swimwear, shoes, boxes and clothing. Please note he cannot give you any legal advice on how to proceed with your own product, only the testing of your product.

The gray area here is the cpsia’s definition of “reasonable testing.” As a manufacturer it is up to me to issue my own certification that my garments do not have any traces of hazardous materials (lead or phthalates). This can only take place after I have the results from a third party lab. The third party lab does not certify you, they only give you the testing results.

There has been discussions of how third parties are to conduct their testing whether it is the use of the XRF scanner which will be changed to “digestive testing” after August 2009. Phil Rogers is conducting “digestive testing” at his facility.

He and I tried to come up with what I would consider reasonable testing for my own garments. Would it be the fabrics, the different colors, the different sizes, the snaps on our one pieces, the ink that is printed on our garments? The answer? It’s up to me. It’s my responsibility to tell the third party tester what areas to test for! The catch? If I don’t test a particular area because of the cost and hazardous materials are found that is where more trouble than I can imagine would come into play.

What is the rate? For this lab it’s $75.00 per (meaning per area I want to test). For example

Let’s take this Fabulous Snappy outfit and dissect it.

Test 1 snap since the hardware is all the same $75.00
Test the 4 color print (white, pink, purple, turquoise) $75 * 4 = $300.00
Test the 1 color print (white) garment label $75
Test the 2 color print (white and turquoise) $75 * 2 = $150.00
Test the fabric $75
Total Cost: $675.00
I would not test different size because the same components make up the same garment regardless of size. That falls under my idea of “reasonable testing.”

Now let’s talk phthalates! This is taken from the CPSIA’s site -
Three phthalates, DEHP, DBP, and BBP, have been permanently prohibited by Congress in concentration of more than 0.1% in “children’s toys” or “child care articles.” A “children’s toy” means a product intended for a child 12 years of age or younger for use when playing, and a “child care article” means a product that a child 3 and younger would use for sleeping, feeding, sucking or teething.

What is the rate for this test? $300 detects 6 types of phthalates. What is my responsibility? To tell my third party testing lab which areas to test. EACH area that is tested is $300. Do my garments need to be tested for phthalates? YES! Why? because your child could sleep in my garment, your child could put the material of the garment in their mouth! The snappy used in my previous example does not have any materials that would easily go inside the mouth. However, I do carry a gown with sleeves and those would go inside a baby’s mouth.

Now let’s take this gown and dissect it.

Test 1 fabric $75
Test 2 ink on the front $75
Test 3 ink on the garment label $75
Test 4 ink on the back $75
All the inks are the same color. Is it safe to assume it’s all the same ink? No.
Test 5 phthalates on the sleeves $300
Total Cost: $600

Let’s check this one too!
Test 1 fabric $75
Test 2 binding $75
Test 3 velcro $75
Test 4 the 2 colored inks on the front $75 * 2= $150.00
Test 5 ink on the garment label $75
Test 6 phthalates on the bottom portion of the bib $300 (it could be put in a baby’s mouth)

Total Cost: $750.00

I made the decision to post this to show how impossible it will be for me to keep my baby clothing line open. Feel free to do your own math on your own products. This is based on my understanding provided by one set of fees by one third party laboratory. What does this mean? More research!

Call #2 - Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services, Inc.  - I got an answering machine.
Call #3 - Consumer Testing Laboratories, Inc. - Transferred 3 times. In the end I got an answering machine.
Call #4 - Elemental Research, LLC - Spoke to Brian Kiser, he is very nice. The rate? $50 per test. They don’t test metals and they don’t test for phthalates.
Call #5 -

I spoke with Jim Cronin and boy does he know his testing! I can’t really wrap my brain around his rates but they could very well save my inventory. What I can tell you is that there is a $20 lead testing fee and $130 phthalates testing fee and $100 set up. That could be as little as $250 per sample. It’s all based on what your product is and my advice would be to give him a call to discuss your product. These rates change depending on LOTS of variables.

That is all the research that my time allows for today but I will continue to educate myself and I hope that this post will help others further understand the costs of the new regulations.

Thank you,

Pamela Kramer

CPSIA is an acronym that means Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Why should you care? The cost of 3rd party testing for certification to prove products do not contain lead or other harmful matters will put many small business owners out of business.

Many reasons:
- If you are a business owner selling products for children 12 and under this will effect you.

- As a consumer you may see many of your favorite products removed from the shelves until testing takes place.

- As a consumer you may see many of your favorite online shops close because testing rates are too high.

- As a consumer you may see an increase in price for products geared toward children 12 and under. The expense of testing will most likely be passed on to the consumer.

- As a WAHM or SAHD that crafts or decorates garments, jewelry or anything for children 12 and under this will effect you.

- Sites such as Wishpot, Etsy and ArtFire or any other Indie hosted sites may lose products and vendors.

- Many of the moms who review products will be effected.

This is going to be a chain reaction that will stretch far and wide as of February 10, 2009 (Now known as National Bankruptcy Day). I personally cringe at the thought of what could happen to my own product line. It is my responsibility to stay informed and research the latest updates. You will find many store owners already blogging about it. There are posts, forums, groups and more spreading the word. Rather than repeat what everyone else is saying I will just list the most effective links that I have found so far. I welcome you to comment here and leave more links that you might know about.

CPSIA Petition for Apparel Industry
What Needs To Be Tested?
ETSY’s open letter
VOTE @ Change.org

Blog Posts:

5 Minutes For Mom
Startup Nation
Cheeky & Swank
Fashion-Incubator
Moon Fly Kids
The Diary of a Poshpreneur
The Smart Mama
Ohana Mama

Forums:
Social Ning
Toy Industry
Craig’s List
Squidoo

Photo courtesy of @mattceni

We have gone through many shipping changes in our store. We have wanted to find a way to provide free shipping to our customers. Now we have! If you are only buying one item from our store that is not gift wrapped we can send your item first class mail for free. As many of you know DHL has left the domestic shipping market to focus on international shipping only. We were saddened to see them leave because we used them to ship our diaper cakes. In order not to lose our entire line of diaper cakes we quickly scrabbled for other shipping methods. Many use UPS for their shipping needs but “brown” couldn’t help our small company, the rates are too high. We would have used USPS but the shipping would have been slower. FedEx came to our rescue! Not only did they provide us with a better rate than DHL but they can get it there in 3 days via ground shipping. We can print the shipping labels just as before straight from our computer. Thank you FedEx for helping Happy Panda keep our line of diaper cakes.