Consumer watchdog Which? has revealed that consumers should be careful when choosing their Halloween costumes, following a snapshot investigation which has revealed that some fail to meet fire safety testing standards.
Which? tested a selection of 20 children’s outfits bought from a range of online and high street retailers, including Asda, Sainsbury’s, B&M, Wilko, Amazon and eBay, assessing their flammability against current safety standards.
Two of the Halloween costumes (a Maleficent costume made by Fiestas Guirca and bought from eBay and a werewolf costume from B&M) failed the current legal requirements (BS EN 71-2) because the headpieces of the outfits ignited and burned too quickly.
“We were shocked to find Halloween costumes that claimed to pass the legal British safety requirement actually failed our flammability testing,” said Alex Neill, from Which?. “While these have now been recalled, we are advising parents to watch out for these costumes being stocked elsewhere.”
Halloween costumes and fancy dress outfits are currently classified as ‘toys’ under current British Toy Safety Regulations, which means that they are put through much more stringent testing than normal everyday clothing.
Which? also assessed the children’s fancy dress costumes against a more robust code of practice which was initiated by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) following a high-profile incident in 2014. Retailers and manufacturers can choose to adhere to this voluntary guideline as part of a tougher testing initiative on top of the current legal requirements.
The stricter code of practice requires fancy dress costumes to have a maximum burn rate of 10mm per second, rather than the legal standard of 30mm per second.
Which? is now calling for all retailers and manufacturers to abide to the BRC guidelines. It also pointed out that all costumes will burn – showing that a homemade Halloween costume – made from a cotton sheet – actually burns far more vigorously than any of the purchased costumes.
