Lead Free, Plastic Free, Guilt Free, Gift Giving!

So, what will you tell those well meaning, truly generous, but not quite informed family members about what holiday presents to bestow upon your glorious children? It is a difficult dance, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, but also not wanting the mouth, so to speak, to be full of lead, vinyl plastic, or other troubling chemicals!

Hence the following links. You can forward them to your friends and family, or send them this blog post.

I am an advocate for brevity. We parents don't have much time, and we certainly don't want to spend every waking second researching toy companies and their products. Thankfully, many environmental groups, blogs, and consumer groups have done much of this work for us. But it is spread out all over the web. That's where Non Toxic Kids comes in. I have listed here the recommendations from trusted organizations only, and I have looked at many of the products and companies myself. Please let me know by email if you know about any problems with any of the links listed below, at non-toxic-kids@comcast.net., and I will take immediate action. It is my hope that the links below will help you (and everyone you know!) find safe, fun and educational toys for your little ones.

Cool Mom Picks Safer Toy Guide. This is a compilation of small, non-mainstream toy companies that are well researched and selected by the Cool Mom Picks team. Many items are a bit pricey, but they are beautiful and well made. This is seriously worth looking into.


The Green Guide, Non Toxic Toys, by National Geographic This site has a good selection of links to specific games, toys and books that are grouped by age, and the materials are listed and discussed. There are also links to reputable companies for more toy buying options.


Guide to Choosing Safe Toys: A general guide for safely selecting toys for your kids.

Online Retailers:

Hazelnut Kids: This site has fantastic write-ups about every brand they sell. They list the country of origin, materials, safety records, and comments from the company. This is an excellent resource.

North Star Toys: I love the chunky wooden toys at this site, and was pleased to see that the company has high environmental and safety standards: they use only American hardwood to create their toys, their shop runs on wind and solar energy, they recycle and use minimum packing, and they use food grade mineral oil to finish all their wood toys.

Organic Gift Shop: This online store has great Haba toys from Germany (see teething post below) , organic stuffed animals and clothes as well.

Rosie Hippos: This family run business prints a catalog that describes the finish used on every wooden toy. They have an awesome selection of carefully selected toys. I plan on buying my baby a few items from this online store.

I will add more to this post another day, but it is late, and my baby will wake up soon. This should be a good start for the planning your gift giving this year, or helping your friends and family buy safe, environmentally friendly gifts for your little ones. If you have any other helpful links or retailers, please send me an email and I will check it out.