OECD 2024 — Considerations when estimating children’s exposure to crafts and toys (Series on Testing and Assessment No. 401)
This OECD Working Party on Exposure Assessment (WPEA) document compiles parameters and algorithms for estimating children’s chemical exposure via dermal, inhalation, and oral routes from seven craft/toy product categories: modelling clay/silly putty/slimes; paint (craft, face, finger); markers/highlighters/pens; cuddle toys/squishies; glues/adhesives/pastes; temporary tattoos; chalk/crayons/colouring pencils. Includes 12 case studies (Crayon-Oral, Markers-Dermal-Oral-Inhalation, Glue-Dermal-Oral-Inhalation, Face Paint-Dermal, Face Paint-Dermal-Oral, Finger Paint-Dermal-Oral, Slime-Dermal-Oral [×3], Putty-Dermal-Oral, Squishies-Dermal-Inhalation, Temporary Tattoos-Dermal). The document does not include analytical occurrence data on heavy metals; it is a methodology and exposure-modeling guidance.
Key numbers
- Product categories covered (Exec Summary p. 7): modelling clay/putty/slime; paint (craft/face/finger); markers/highlighters/pens; cuddle toy/squishy; glues/adhesives/pastes; temporary tattoos; chalk/crayons/colouring pencils.
- Emerging product categories examined (Section 3): kinetic sand and thinking putty; water gel, jelly marbles, and fake snow powder; Science kits and “make your own cosmetics” kits.
- Age groups for craft/toy exposure (Table 2.1, p. 14): the table lists product-by-age pairings — 0-5 months (teething ring, cuddle toy, cloth book, mobiles, push/pull toys, stuffed toys), 6-11 months (plastic doll, crayons), 1 year (modelling clay, finger paint, dress-up materials, art/construction paper, interlocking building materials), 3 years (face paint, hobby paint, slime, glue, glitter glue, marker pens, acrylic paint, squishy toy), 4-8 years (chalk, poster paint, felt pen, ball pen, life-sized dolls). Footnoted to Bremmer & van Veen 2002, Danish EPA 2015/2016/2018, and CPSC 2020. Body-weight, surface-area, and inhalation-rate defaults are flagged as outside the case-study scope and would need to be drawn from referenced regulatory factbooks (US EPA EFH 2011, RIVM General Fact Sheet).
- Case studies (Annex C, pp. 54-65): twelve worked exposure-dose calculations (A-L), each covering one product-category × route combination. Face Paint-Dermal (Case D, ages 3-6, ConsExpo dermal-direct-contact model) and Face Paint-Dermal-Oral (Case E, ages 0.5-4, ConsExpo v4.1 dermal + oral) are the most directly relevant for heavy-metal craft/cosmetic exposure modeling.
- Case A (Crayon-Oral) is the only case study with an inorganic substance illustration: applies the framework to copper exposure from a single MSDS-reported crayon (Crayon-Aqua, 0.3% Cu per MSDS 2009) at PA 8 mg/day, F 1/day, BW 15.5 kg, age 0.5-4 yr. Methodology only; not a peer-reviewed occurrence value.
- Case H (Slime-Dermal-Oral, inorganic) references the EN 71-3 element-migration test (boron migration up to 6,384 mg/kg) under the BfR (2022) opinion framework. EN 71-3 is the Toy Safety Directive 2009/48/EC analytical reference for migration of Pb, Cd, As, Sb, Ba, Hg, Se, Cr, and other elements.
- Case studies submitted by 4 WPEA contributors (Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Denmark) per Executive Summary p. 7. Broader subgroup membership (Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Sweden, US, EU, BIAC, WHO, EEB) reviewed the document per Foreword.
- Endorsed by OECD WPEA June 2024; published under Chemicals and Biotechnology Committee responsibility.
Methods (brief)
OECD WPEA-led methodology compilation. Sources reviewed: existing exposure-modeling tools and frameworks from US EPA (ExpoFIRST, SHEDS, EPA Exposure Factors Handbook 2011), EU ECHA (ECETOC TRA, ConsExpo, BfR exposure models), Health Canada (ConsExpo-Web), and peer-reviewed exposure-science literature. Approach: for each of the seven product categories, the document lists existing default parameters (mass per use, frequency, duration, surface area exposed, inhalation rate, room volume) and recommended algorithms (one-compartment dermal, fraction-released oral, instantaneous-release inhalation). Each case study includes source documentation for default values, calculated dose, and identified data gaps. Limitations stated: emerging products (kinetic sand, water gel marbles, science kits) lack dedicated exposure parameters; observational data on children’s actual use patterns are scarce; inter-individual variability in body weight, skin surface area, inhalation rate, and use duration is high.
Implications
- Certification (HMTc): Methodology reference for face-paint and finger-paint exposure modelling. Case D (Face Paint-Dermal, ConsExpo direct-contact, 410 cm² exposed half-head area, 1.2 g product amount, 12 applications/year, 15.7 kg BW) and Case E (Face Paint-Dermal-Oral, ConsExpo v4.1, 1.4 g/application, 0.44 mg/min oral ingestion rate, 480 min duration) supply default exposure parameters that can be combined with heavy-metal occurrence data from other sources to estimate per-event dose. Not directly threshold-anchoring (no occurrence values in this document).
- Courses: Foundational regulatory-affairs reading for children’s product exposure-assessment modules. Demonstrates the OECD-harmonized framework for craft/toy exposure estimation across dermal, oral, and inhalation routes.
- App: Not relevant to ingredient contamination_profile. Provides per-product use-frequency and use-duration defaults that could seed a children’s-product use-pattern table.
Wiki pages this source may touch
- face-paint
- lead, cadmium, arsenic, antimony, barium, mercury, chromium — only via EN 71-3 reference framework cited in Case H; no occurrence data reported here.
Verification notes
- 2026-05-17 merge-enhance pass (Claude Opus 4.7, fresh-context read of pp. 1-15 and 53-66): page metadata, twelve case-study tally, OECD WPEA provenance and CC BY 4.0 licence reverified against title page, copyright page (p. 2), Foreword (p. 4), Executive Summary (p. 7), Scope (pp. 9-11), Annex B (p. 53), and Annex C (pp. 54-65).
- Corrected contributing-country claim: prior revision conflated case-study contributors (4 countries — Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Denmark per Executive Summary p. 7) with WPEA Children’s Health subgroup membership (broader 15-entity list per Foreword p. 4). Now stated separately.
- Removed the children’s-makeup product pointer from frontmatter
products:(prior revision had it as a wikilink). The OECD scope statement (p. 10) explicitly excludes cosmetics: “Some exposure scenarios for children, such as cosmetics … were not included in this case study as these products would be considered separate from crafts and toys.” Face paint is treated as a craft product (Annex A toy/article categorisation), not a cosmetic. The HMTc Cat 2 Row 13 children’s-makeup page covers cosmetic-grade makeup (eye shadow, blush, foundation), which is outside this source’s scope. - Removed two speculative children’s-lip-balm pointers (mineral-bearing and plain) from the prior “Wiki pages this source may touch” list: lip balm is not addressed anywhere in this document.
metals: []retained: the document is methodology and exposure-modelling guidance, not an occurrence study. The only metal-specific case study (Case A — copper in crayon at 0.3% per a single MSDS) uses an MSDS placeholder rather than a peer-reviewed measurement; the EN 71-3 reference in Case H names the analyte list (Pb, Cd, As, Sb, Ba, Hg, Se, Cr) but does not report values. Addingmetals:slugs would over-attribute the document.- Brand-firewall clean: case studies cite agencies (Danish EPA, BfR, RIVM, ECCC/Health Canada, US EPA, SCHER, EFSA), regulatory test standards (EN 71-3, Toy Safety Directive 2009/48/EC), exposure tools (ConsExpo, ConsExpo Web 4.1, ExpoFIRST, SHEDS), and academic references (te Biesebeek 2014, Van Engelen 2008, Park 2018, Guak 2018, den Braver 2021, Affourtit 2023). The Case A “Crayon-Aqua (MSDS 2009, Horizon Group USA)” reference names a single MSDS document, not a brand-attributable contamination value — this is the scientific-methods exception per Part 12 (Exception 2). No brand-attributed contamination data anywhere in the document.
- Emerging-product gap analysis (kinetic sand, water gel marbles, “make your own cosmetics” kits, science kits) flags categories where HMI may need new product slugs in the future. Surfaced for Karen’s category-creation queue, not actioned in this ingest.
- 2026-05-17 audit subagent (fresh-context Agent, general-purpose) verdict PROMOTE. One ⚠️ concern: prior Key-numbers bullet on Table 2.1 conflated the table’s product-by-age pairings with generic age-bracket conventions (infant 0-1, toddler 1-3, etc.) that the table does not enumerate. Verified independently against p. 14 of the PDF; finding correct. Tightened the bullet to describe Table 2.1’s actual content (product/age pairings with Bremmer/Danish EPA/CPSC footnotes) and moved the body-weight-defaults caveat to a separate sentence. 0 ❌ definite-error findings.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.