Top children's brands fail quality checks

FAMOUS brands of children's clothes have been found to have quality problems in checks across the country carried out ahead of today's Children's Day.

These ranged from poor color fastness and a high pH index to excess levels of formaldehyde, quality watchdogs said.

Doctors say excessive formaldehyde can cause headaches, dermatitis, eczema and even malignant tumors and leukemia.

Dye in clothing with poor color fastness will bleed out onto the skin, which can be harmful, while a high pH index can lead to skin allergies and make people vulnerable to bacteria.

The brands included Gucci, Zara, GAP, H&M, Giorgio Armani, Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Adidas and Nike.

H&M removed a children's knitted coat from shelves nationwide and consumers can return the item, said company spokeswoman Amy Fu. It was found to have poor color fastness by watchdogs in south China's Guangzhou City.

They also found a Snoopy T-shirt with the same problem.

Trousers from GAP were found to have poor resistance to fading as the result of perspiration and saliva and didn't meet the national standard, the China's Consumers' Association said. They also had a high pH index.

The association tested 50 samples of clothing for children under three. The items, both domestic and foreign, were chosen at random from 12 shopping malls, supermarkets and franchised stores in Beijing and cost from 12.9 yuan (US$2.08) and 1,280 yuan.

An Adidas knitted suit and a Nike knitted jacket also had poor color fastness.

Children have a more tender skin, and are more vulnerable to harm caused by substandard textiles, the association said.

In their tests, a set of Hello Kitty overalls was found to contain less of some types of fiber than its label indicated.

The association said that 28 items out of the 50 had some kind of problem.

Meanwhile, the Beijing Consumer Association found 37 percent of 82 children's items bought from e-commerce websites such as Taobao, Tmall, 360buy and Dangdang.com had quality problems.

The pockets of jeans from Shanghai Redkids, for example, contained about 50 times the decomposable aromatic amine than the national standard. Decomposable aromatic amine dyes, banned in clothing, are toxic and can cause cancer, experts said.

Taobao said it would remove such products from sale and deduct points from stores involved based on third-party test results.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, China's top quality watchdog, said 130 batches of imported children's clothing - 44,000 items valued at 1.15 million yuan - failed tests between January and May and were either destroyed or returned.

Zhu Xiaoyu, a Shanghai resident and mother of a 30-month-old girl, said she was surprised to find GAP on the list of quality problems. She had bought many clothes for her daughter there.

"I always think renowned international brands will have better quality than domestic brands," Zhu said. "Their clothes are much prettier in style and the prices are affordable at sale season."

Zhu said that she would continue to buy clothes from major brands as lesser-known brands might be of worse quality