Don’t put children at risk this Halloween

Incidents involving children who are severely injured while wearing fancy dress costumes that readily catch fire and then burn violently remain of concern. If you are a retailer selling children’s toy dress-up and Halloween costumes, you should ensure your products are of a high quality.

Toy safety legislation compliance

To ensure your products are safe you must first make sure they comply with toy safety legislation. A starting point is to look for either the ‘CE’ or the ‘UKCA’ mark on the item.

Fancy dress costumes for children under 14 years are considered to be toys and fall within the scope of the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011.

To comply they must not:

• Burn if directly exposed to a flame or spark, or
• Be readily flammable – that is, the flame goes out as soon as the ignition source is removed

If they do ignite:

• They must burn slowly and present a low rate of spread, or
• Be treated so as to delay the combustion process

Apply BS EN 71 Part 2

To demonstrate compliance with the regulations, a manufacturer of children’s fancy dress costumes can apply BS EN 71 Part 2. This covers the flammability requirements for toys and is used by manufacturers to test that fancy dress costumes comply.

Fancy dress items made also need to comply with children’s nightwear legislation, which can be found at www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1985/2043/contents/

Voluntary codes of practice 

Trading Standards’ advice is to comply with the new voluntary codes of practice supported by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and its members to enhance the safety of children’s dress-up clothing.

Additionally, you may want to provide safety advice to your customers by using the safety leaflets provided in the Additional Flammability Labelling of Children’s Dress-up Code of Practice.