AAwipes Lead Test Swab Kit (80 Pcs Rapid Home Testing Swabs, 30-Second Results Dip in Water). Home Use, Painted, Dishes, Jewelry, Metal, Ceramics, Wood (LS80)

After seeing a YouTube video on lead test strips I purchased these as I wanted to test some Coffee Mugs we had and some of the different parts of my built and bought guitars. I first checked to see if these strips would work on a known item with lead, 40% electronics solder. The strips worked quickly and turned orangish red. Next I tried several coffee mugs, and some heavy china plates we have. No color change thankfully here. Next I tested several of my guitars strings particularly ones which leave my fingers with a dark disolored line on them. A couple showed a little bit of a change. Checking frets on guitars did not see any color change. However when I tested the tremolo metal blocks of my foreign made guitars definite color changes. One particularly one I really like turned almost immediately dark red when I swabbed it. Checking some more expensive guitar blocks which were not the color of lead but almost dark grey black these did not turn the swabs. The swabs are really easy to use and in my experiments I would say they work as intended. Having used Lead swabs in my past job these seam to be quite good. For the price I would definitely recommend them if you have any concerns about lead in some of your items.

I can’t tell if they work for lead, I didn’t have any to verify that with (thank goodness). Easy to use.

Doing renovation on my 1908 house, so I bought these for testing various surfaces. Turns out, I have used them for reasons after that. Since I like to thrift and restore these have come in handy.

I was going to return these swabs as you need to check the color of the swab after rubbing against the surface you’re checking. The swab is dark enough that a slight color variation, say light pink may not show clearly against the dark color of the swab. That’s how I was kind of mislead when I first tried them. My new “lead free” per the website and box (but not printed on the pot itself) Christmas teapot (English company but made in India) seemed ok until I rinsed the residue from the pot. It turned pink. So I checked again and same thing. The dark swab remained dark, but the reverse osmosis water I used to both wet the swab and rinse the pot is telling . My Royal Doulton made in England dinnerware set is good, shown for comparison. My son’s new lead free espresso cups turned pink, not good . The teapot and espresso mugs will be returned. I’m happy with the detector swabs but deducted 1 star as the swabs i themselves didn’t change color as i was expecting. So, these do appear to work and be a useful tool and I will buy more in future. The moral of the story: don’t believe everything you read, double check.

Got these because I thrift a lot and want to make sure my dishes are safe to eat from. They work exactly as expected and have saved me from using unsafe ceramics!

Anyone who says that this thing turns mustard yellow is not eating any kind of mustard that I have ever seen. Weather placed in distilled water or tap water or RO water filtered from City these do not change color when exposed to water as per the instructions. I have tested these against the old peanuts and Garfield glasses from McDonald's that are known to contain leaded paint. As well as a Star Trek glass that I know is leaded paint. There is no changing color to the swab. I even want to stop further and tried swapping pure lead on a 7.62x39 round and a .380s&w round and a lead wheel weight. No color change except a slight darkening of the already burnt orange color it was. There was no huge shift just a slightly more concentrated orange that these things come in. $35 into two different purchases of these and I cannot recommend that anyone use these for their safety. They are not accurate, there is no color change to show readability, I've gone through four containers and roughly 15 swabs so the quality is crappy across multiple purchases, I've tried letting them sit in water for more than the 2 seconds that they recommend and tested immediately only to get no results so they aren't quick, I would say they're easy to use but there is nothing on the bottle to compare your test colors to literally just the colors of the box that it's shipped in... And I've spent $35 for something that doesn't work. Super poor value, don't put your health at risk, it's not worth your time.

It did the job as expected. Thank you they were perfect.

These begin orange and turn bright purple-pink as soon as they touch lead. First, I dipped the q-tip in distilled water so that I knew the water itself wouldn't contain any lead, then I smudged it hard onto a glass dish that I wanted to test: nothing happened after 30 seconds of rubbing on the glass (still just orange). I then tried rubbing it on an antique painted chair that I suspected could have white lead paint: again, no change. I then rubbed the tip on the terminal of an old lead acid battery that I knew would contain lead to see if the tip would do anything, and it immediately turned dark pink! So good news, these work, and my antique chairs don't have lead paint. It seems that as long as the things you're testing don't contain lead (no color change), then you can use the swab on a few different things until it does detect lead, then it's done and becomes trash. The 60 swabs come in two bottles of 30 each and seemed like a good amount for the price.

Tested several toys, swab stayed orange. So did the puddle of stuff from the swab. Then I wiped it off with a paper towel, and the towel turned purple! I tried again with another swab, and same result! I wiped the solution off the toys with a cloth rag, and it turned pink, though this rag has been washed many times. I'm confused. Do the toys have lead, or does my paper towel and rag?

Worked for these vintage forks we had (positive) and some other thrifted stoneware (negative), but it is very hard to read. Could easily cause a false negative. Also i noticed if what was rubbed on to a plate (orange residue) with the qtip was rubbed off with water once it dried, it would wipe off as violet indicating lead, not sure if this is due to copper content in water or what, but i did this on multiple surfaces, some of which i know are lead free. Even if the qtip test indicated it was a negative, it would still wipe off purple. I find it very confusing

a must have for any furniture restoration. these will detect lead in the old paint. This will trigger you to wear a protective face mask, and save you from lead poisoning

I got these to check a specific piece of furniture for lead. It tested positive. Many other things in my house tested "positive" too. After doing some research, I discovered that sodium rhodizonate reacts with several different metals including tin, iron, zinc (including zinc oxide in many modern non-lead containing white paint!). The colour change is slightly different with different metals but honestly hard to distinguish with a lot of confidence. It's somewhat easier if you activate the swab with vinegar instead of water. In my opinion these home test kits are going to cause many harness household objects to needlessly to to landfill. I got a different test kit with UV light and spray and it didn't have the issue with false positives. The piece of furniture in question did have lead paint which we suspected based on age and condition.

My kit did not work. I conducted multiple tests for lead paint in a flour mill from the 1850s, which had served various purposes over the years. Despite numerous attempts, all swab tests returned negative for lead, showing no color change. Doubting these outcomes, I suspected lead paint might still be present given the building's age so I had a friend that had an XRF analyzer (a very expensive tool commonly used by professional lead inspectors) to come and cross check my results. The XRF analyzer revealed lead content ranging from 2.5% to 10% in several areas, including doorways, windows, and stairwells, all of which had previously tested negative with the swabs. Furthermore, the instructions provided were confusing. The instructions said to dip the Q-tip in water and waiting for it to turn mustard yellow however the tips were already this color, as also seen in the product images on the listing. Additionally, when testing on deteriorating paint—a common trait of older, lead-containing layers—the Q-tip would adopt the color of the paint being sampled. This wasn't generally an issue, except when testing red or pink paints, as it became challenging to discern whether a color change was due to the paint or lead presence. The kit I received was neither expired nor unsealed, eliminating the possibility of a compromised product. However, the lack of expected results leads me to believe this was a case of poor manufacturing. Given the critical nature of lead testing, I recommend seeking alternative products and verifying the results through secondary means.