Not Every Squishy Toy on Sale Has Passed a Safety Test

If your child has a squishy toy in the toy bin, it is worth picking it up and looking at it properly. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is warning that counterfeit versions of the animal, food and character-shaped squeeze toys are moving through online marketplaces, social media, discount stores and other retailers, and that many of them were never tested against the federal rules written to control what goes inside a children's toy.

The agency is also repeating an earlier warning about something separate: children and teenagers microwaving squishy toys and filming what happens.

Customs Officers Have Stopped 355,683 of the Fake Toys

Working with US Customs and Border Protection, the CPSC says it has identified 55 shipments of noncompliant squishy toys at American ports and kept 355,683 units out of the country. It has also issued notices of violation to the companies importing or selling them. Federal law prohibits the import and sale of any children's toy that fails a CPSC safety standard, so none of these should have been heading for a shelf.

Counterfeit Toys Skip the Required Safety Testing

A genuine squishy toy has to be tested and certified against federal requirements covering small parts, lead, phthalates and, since March, water beads. The counterfeits the CPSC describes go through none of that. They can carry excess lead or banned phthalates, tear during ordinary play and release small parts or filling, and turn up with no warnings, no age grading, no tracking information and no manufacturer named anywhere on them.

A Chemical Smell or a Sticky Feel Is a Reason to Stop

The CPSC says to stop using any squishy toy that has no identifiable manufacturer, is missing its safety information, smells strongly of chemicals, feels oily or unusually sticky, is leaking, or comes apart easily in a child's hands.

Water Beads Keep Expanding After a Child Swallows Them

Some squishy toys are filled with water beads, gels, liquids, powders or sand, held in under a thin outer skin. Once that skin tears, whatever is inside is within reach of a small child. Water beads are the filling with a federal rule of their own. They keep swelling after they are swallowed, which can block a child's intestine, and they can cause choking or be drawn into the airway. Pushed into a nose or an ear they cause their own injuries. The unidentified fillings in counterfeit toys carry their own risks if a child breathes them in or swallows them.

A federal safety standard for water bead toys took effect on March 12 this year. Using national hospital surveillance data, the CPSC estimates 6,300 water bead injuries were treated in US emergency departments between 2017 and 2022. Most of those children were sent home the same day, though 2 percent were admitted to the hospital. Between December 2012 and March 2024 the agency also ran five recalls and issued two public warnings covering about 166,000 units, linked to one death and five injuries.

The same rule records how quickly this happens. Swallowing a bead, choking on one, inhaling it or pushing it into a nose or ear takes seconds, and many of these incidents happen when nobody is looking directly at the child. The research behind the rule found that two to five year olds are out of an adult's sight for roughly a fifth of their waking hours at home, and out of both sight and earshot for about 4 percent of it.

A Heated Toy Can Burst, and the Filling Sticks to Skin

Separate from the counterfeits, the CPSC is reissuing its warning about videos showing squishy toys microwaved until they swell, change texture or burst. It says those demonstrations are dangerous and should never be tried or copied. A toy can reach the same temperatures in direct sun, in a hot car or next to a heater. When one bursts under heat it can cause severe burns, and because the filling is often sticky it clings to skin and keeps passing heat into it, which makes the burn worse than a brief touch against something hot.