When your little artist uses the wall as a canvas, many parents turn to the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.
Wetting the sponge activates the melamine foam, which creates an abrasive surface, like sandpaper, and buffs away dirt.
An e-mail circulating right now shows pictures of a boy named Kolby, who allegedly rubbed himself with a Magic Eraser.
Procter and Gamble, the company that makes Magic Eraser, can’t confirm if the pictures are authentic.
But a company spokeswoman says some consumers may be using the product incorrectly.
“People are scrubbing the wall and saying “Wow! It gets marker off my wall, maybe it will get hair dye off my forehead, or printer ink off my skin!” And that is not at all a recommended use,” says Susan Baba, external relations at Procter and Gamble.
The Alberta Poison Centre says it took 35 calls last year regarding children exposed to household cleaners. The Centre doesn’t track calls by product names, but confirms some of the incidents involved Magic Erasers.
“Our common call is that there’s something on the skin, they’ve used the eraser on that something, or children believe it’s actually an eraser. We would then go through cleaning it off with water, and no scrubbing,” says Lorraine Shopik, coordinator at the Alberta Poison Centre.
Shopik says the product is classified as abrasive, but not corrosive. That means rubbing your skin with it could cause irritation, but not a burn or broken skin.
Even still, the company has added new warning labels and the Poison Centre says it should be stored away from children.
“We have to remember it’s a cleaning product and should be treated like other cleaning products. You wouldn’t give kids bleach or glass cleaner, so treat this the same way,” says Shopik.
Other than the foam, the company says Magic Erasers do not contain any added chemicals — including formaldehyde, the subject of another e-mail forward a couple of years ago.
The company says the erasers have never been banned, and continue to be one of the company’s most popular products.
“We have toxicologists on staff who have proven extensively that this product is safe for the consumer,” says Baba.
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