An experiment by Belgian consumer rights organisation Test Achats has found that close to half of children's clothes purchased from fast fashion giant Shein could contain harmful substances.
From a sample of 25 clothing items purchased from Shein and tested by Test Achats, ten were found to contain at least one hazardous substance.
Test Achats conducted a chemical safety test on items of children's clothing ranging from waterproof jackets and T-shirts, to shoes and swimwear.
In April, the European Commission classified Chinese retailer Shein as a "very large platform" under the new Digital Services Act, meaning that the platform is subject to unique transparency rules to protect consumers. These include risk assessment reports concerning illegal products such as counterfeit goods.
Among the substances found by Test Achats in children's clothing sold by Shein were phthalates, which are endocrine disruptors, allergens such as nickel and lead, and irritants such as dimethylformamide and quinoline, as well as nonylphenol ethoxylates.
The latter are particularly harmful to aquatic organisms, but over time they break down into another substance that disrupts the endocrine system.
In the case of one pair of shoes, the concentration of hazardous substances found was far in excess of levels authorised by European legislation.
"In a pair of children's shoes, we found harmful substances that far exceeded the authorised quantity: five times too much lead and hundreds of times too many phthalates," said Test Achats spokesperson Julie Frère. "It is completely irresponsible to offer such an article on the European market."
Call for tighter EU regulation
Although the other articles of clothing complied with the maximum quantities imposed by EU REACH regulations to protect human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals, Test Achats called for the regulations to be strengthened, particularly for endocrine disruptors.
"Some of them can have health effects at very low concentrations, especially when it comes to children. We also need to take into account the cocktail effect of all these substances and chronic exposure from different sources," Frère warned.
Test Achats highlighted that this is not the first time it has monitored non-European online shops, sometimes collaborating with other consumer rights organisations.
Previous tests have found product safety and compliance issues with Chinese online retailer Temu, as well as security problems with products from websites such as AliExpress, Wish and Amazon.
"Too many products are still arriving on the internal market without complying with European legislation on product safety. Our authorities need to carry out more checks, and we are also asking the platforms to take their obligations seriously. The safety of consumers is at stake," Frère concluded.
A spokesperson for Shein said that they take the findings of Test Achats "seriously", and the one product of 25 tested which did not meet legal requirements has been "immediately removed" from sale while the company investigates.
"Shein prioritises the safety and health of all our customers, we require our suppliers to comply with stringent controls and standards that are aligned to Europe’s REACH and other global standards, and we work with leading international third-party testing agencies, to carry out regular testing to ensure suppliers' compliance to these standards," they said.
They added that in the past year Shein has conducted more than 400,000 chemical safety tests with these agencies.
