ONE of the country's leading toy stores has taken loom band charms off its shelves after they were found to contain potentially harmful chemicals.
The Entertainer, which has branches in Glasgow and Livingston, said the charms could contain phthalates, which can disrupt hormones in children.
The chemicals, which are used to soften plastics, have been banned in toys on sale in the European Union for several years.
The craze for loom bands - tiny loops of elastic in different colours that can be linked together to create low-cost jewellery such as necklaces and bracelets - shows no signs of abating, with the Duchess of Cambridge and pop star Harry Styles seen wearing them.
A spokeswoman for the retailer, which has 92 stores in the UK, said: "It was brought to our attention today that loom charms purchased from one of our stores may contain phthalates. At The Entertainer, children's safety is our number one priority so as a precautionary measure we have removed all loom charms from sale with immediate effect whilst we conduct a full investigation."
She added that any customers who had bought charms would be offered a full refund or exchange in any of the stores and emphasised that it was not the actual loom bands that were affected.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article