#consumer safety

[dollmaidcrystal]

FeturaX / Furrjoi have been advertising their new breathplay toys. DO NOT combine their masks with a bubbler bottle as shown in these ads. It will kill you.

This is not a "breathplay is unsafe" post. It's a "this is bad engineering" post.

The issue is that FeturaX hoods do not have one-way exhaust valves. Gas masks contain a valve that allow you to breath out easily, without going through the same port you inhale from. They're a part that needs to be manufactured separately and glued into place, which FeturaX doesn't do. Instead, FeturaX hoods either have full openings for breathing or, in the case of the pool toy line, no openings at all. In the hoods that appear to have exhaust valves, these are actually non-functioning sculpted decorative details.

A bubbler bottle works by placing your only source of air on the other side of a shallow pool of water. In order to breath, you have to inhale with enough force to create a negative pressure area in the top of the bubbler, which then causes air from the outside to be sucked in to fill the void, filtering through the water. This is possible because gas masks have that one-way valve, so breathing normally will eventually drain the system of air.

(Yes, it is the same mechanism ashow a bong works. Stop giggling, you in the back.)

Without an exhaust valve, the carbon dioxide you exhale will instead be trapped in the bubbler bottle and the hose connecting it to your mask. The buildup of C02 will prevent fresh air from entering the system, until the air you're breathing doesn't contain enough oxygen to support you. Then hypoxia sets in, and hopefully your partner is able to pull the quick release in time to save your life.

The FeturaX breathplay setups also lack a quick release.

I've publicly reached out to FeturaX on social media, explaining this flaw. Their representative informed me their breathplay toys were working as designed, and that the form of breathplay they support was slowly draining the oxygen in the bottle, resulting in "slight suffocation".

This is ludicrously unsafe, even by my RACK standards. Do not purchase this gear.

[victusinveritas]

[verschlimmbesserung]

Don't consume US American products

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/11/22/forever-chemicals-pesticides/

EPA just approved new ‘forever chemical’ pesticides for use on food

weakening PFAS water protections is next

[starful-emporium]

Amazon is suing the Consumer Product Safety Commission

... for finding Amazon responsible for notifying buyers of product recalls.

Amazon sues Consumer Product Safety Commission over recall order for hazardous products

The agency had ordered Amazon to notify the buyers of over 400,000 recalled items and to give refunds in exchange for proof the products wer

The independent federal agency ordered Amazon in January to take several actions, including notifying customers who bought more than 400,000 items covered by recalls and giving refunds to those who could prove the products were properly disposed of or destroyed.

The order followed the commission's unanimous determination last summer that Amazon was a “distributor” of faulty items sold on its website by third-party sellers and shipped through the company’s fulfillment service.

...

Amazon said in its lawsuit that it issued previous recall notices and some refunds shortly after the CPSC raised safety concerns several years ago. The company argues the commission is an “unconstitutionally structured agency” that overstepped its authority with the new directive.

I'm not a lawyer or well versed in product safety, so I'm not sure what exactly the situation is in regards to legality. but I can say, Amazon's wording here looks REALLY similar to DOGE messaging (and as this article points out, SpaceX has filed a similar lawsuit against CPSC).

[pythianoracle]

PSA About Some Shady Shit on Tumblr

This post is to bring light to some shady marketing on tumblr. This is not about an individual, but rather as a company posing as an aesthetic/meme account in order to get people to buy from their shitty drop shipping company.

I am making this post because I am sick of covert marketing and drop shippers over charging for the same stuff that can be found for cheaper and by the actual company. I am also concerned for the possible hazard of drop shipped items that need to be food safe in order to use.

Tumblr user @/my-kawaii—world is a drop shipping company pretending to be an aesthetic blogger who happens to “find” links to all the products in posts. All these links lead to the same drop shipping company website: Lavender Constellation. Under the cut is evidence to support my claim.

Alt text has been added for accessibility.

Hey, so I’m really not one to make posts like this, but I saw something that rlly sketched me out that some people may want to be aware of.

So, someone I follow reblogged this really cute teapot that my-kawaii—world posted!

[ID: a screenshot of a tweet reposted by user my-kawaii—world on tumblr. The post reads “losing my mind over this frog teapot my best friend gave me”. Attached to the tweet are two images showing a green frog teapot with two black tadpole cups. ID END]

Seems innocent enough, right? But then you scroll to the end of the post.

[ID: A screenshot of the bottom of the previous post by my-kawaii—world. Attached is a link to a storefront in green and pink text that reads “**Update For the people asking I asked her and she bought the frog tea set HERE🐸. ID END]

I thought “dang, a ton of people must have been asking them if they went to all that extra effort”, so I decided to check the tags.

[ID: A screenshot of the post reblogs with the user names blocked out in red to respect privacy. From top to bottom, the tags read: #cat #basically #cats and #haha. ID END]

Why would people be tagging this with cats if it has nothing to do with cats? Looking further, if you open up a reblog, you see this.

[ID: A screenshot a reblog that shows a different tweet. Punctuation has been added to alt text for readability. The tweet reads as follows: “Me: Invents a device to talk to cats. Cat: Oh god, finally you understand me. When ever I meow for hours it’s because I want wet food. I know this was so opaque for you. Me: No no, I knew you want wet food the whole time, but you can’t have it whenever you want. Cat: (blank space) Me: (blank space) Cat: first of all, fuck you,”. ID END]

They’re retroactively editing their high note posts to give more credibility to the shit they’re selling. Here is the listing on the linked website

[ID: a screenshot of a website called “Lavender Constellation”. The website has a light purple background with darker purple text. The listing image is of a green frog teapot with two black tadpole cups on a pink background and labeled “TEA SET FROG & TADPOLE”. The item’s original price is listed as $149.95 USD and is listed as on sale for $79.99 USD. ID END]

Wow isn’t it so cool that it’s on sale right now? Save over $60 USD? What a steal! They also offer free world-wide shipping and have a coupon code you can use. Crazy.

Upon further digging, the real teapot is the frog from the サンアート aka sunart brand, specifically from their parent and child collection. And guess what? You can get it on Amazon for less than half the price, even after the “sale”.

[ID: a screenshot of the same green frog teapot and black tadpole cups listen on Amazon. At the bottom are options to select, including Frog Parent, Elephant Parent, and an additional one that is cut off. The frog parent is $32.96 USD and the elephant parent is $26.22 USD. ID END]

I looked into the brand and they seem to specifically make ceramics additionally, the options to pick less popular options that I don’t see nearly as many bootlegs of make me pretty confident this is the actual product.

This is far from the only post they’ve done this with. Looking at their blog, you’ll see a sea of ads for their original posts, all linking to the same store:

[ID: A screenshot of a post by my-kawaii—world. The post is cut off due to the size of the device it was taken on. In the screenshot, there is an image of a silver sword ring with a skull on the pommel and a chain connecting the pommel to the cross-guard. Below the image is a link that red, bolded, and underlined text that reads: “OMG, I FINALLY FOUND THE RIGHT WITH FREE SHIPPING!!!!”. ID END]

And then following the link, we get taken right back to the Lavender Constellation website:

[ID: A screenshot of the same Lavender Collection Website from before with a pale purple background and darker purple text. The listing photo is of a person’s hand with a silver ring in the shape of a sword. It has a skull on the pommel and a chain connecting the pommel to the cross-guard. The listing is labeled “STAINLESS STEEL GOTH SWORD RING” in purple text. ID END]

If you go to their page, you will see a ton of other examples of this. Hell, I have even more examples, but I feel this post is long enough as is. I’m frankly fed up with people doing this shit, especially charging over double the price of an original product for a shitty knock off.

I’m not going to comment of the safety of these products (i.e., if the knock off teapot is food safe or not) because I don’t plan on buying one to test for lead, but that is a genuine risk you have when buying drop shipped products. For example, counterfeit makeup is well known for containing chemicals that can be harmful to the skin due because they’re much cheaper than the skin safe stuff. Here is a research article that discusses some of the harmful effects that unregulated, counterfeit makeup can have on your skin. The article is open access, so don’t worry about being blocked by a paywall.

Again, I don’t know if the counterfeit teapot is food safe or not, I haven’t been able to find any posts discussing the bootleg, or even Lavendar Constellation as a whole, but with stuff like this, it’s much better to be safe than sorry.

I am positive my-kawaii—world and Lavender Constellation are not the only people running operations like this on tumblr, I’m sure there are a shit ton more. Most will probably run the same way as my-kawaii—world. Essentially if you go to a page that posts a ton of cute, aesthetic products and they link to the same website for every single thing, it’s probably a drop shipping scam.

I’m not someone who thinks I’m “morally superior” for buying only name brand stuff, hell I own a few bootleg plushies, but items that need to food safe are not something I personally would fuck around with. And even if these bootlegs are food safe, the fact that they are charging over double the price of the original is so ludicrous and inexcusable.

Personally, I recommend blocking the @/my-kawaii—world account. Don’t micromanage people who have already reblogged from them unless they’re a friend, mutual, etc. Basically, don’t harass strangers who happened to reblog the original post or the edited post. Just get the word out there about this account.

Do I think my post will shut down their site and drive them off Tumblr? Probably not. But the more people that know about this specific scam and scams like it, the better.

[h1ghtechl0wlife]

please read, medical device recall

i know this post is long but it has very important information for anyone with sleep apnea or with a family member with it, or anyone concerned with consumer safety and the health of disabled people. fellow leftists please take note.

so my cpap machine is one of the ones affected by the philips device recall... im so happy i didnt waste any of my good stickers on it yet

on that note though, cpap and bipap machines were affected, both ones used for full-time ventilation and ones used at night only, as well as ventilators used in hospitals. i got my shit registered so they can add me to a list to get repairs, but they clarify that it will be a while before they are able to provide repairs or replacements. to a machine that helps you breathe or fully breathes for you, depending on the type. 

did i mention that unless you are on a ventilator you are just supposed to stop treatment until they can get around to replacing your machine? for however long it takes for them to get around to fixing/replacing it? like. there’s a lot of side effects from sleep apnea that can be pretty severe. i would be worried about my ability to do something like school this semester, let alone work. 

sleep apnea is fairly common and so there will be people working jobs, using heavy machinery, driving large vehicles, making potential serious or deadly mistakes because of headaches, dizziness, mood swings, brain fog, excessive daytime tiredness, fatigue, falling asleep on the job. people get into car accidents as a result of untreated sleep apnea. untreated sleep apnea can also lead to heart attacks and strokes. it can also cause increased blood sugar levels and inflammation in the body, of particular concern for those who are otherwise chronically ill. 

like, step 1 of the recall page said to stop treatment immediately. you can consult with your doctor to see if you should continue anyway, if your health is at enough risk to continue, but the issue with the machines behind the recall is foam used in the machine degrading and chemical off-gassing. the foam degradation causes patients to inhale or ingest particles of the foam. as said by philips themselves, “These issues can result in serious injury which can be life-threatening, cause permanent impairment, and/or require medical intervention to preclude permanent impairment.”  Potential risks of particulate exposure include skin/eye/airway irritation, inflammatory response, headache, asthma, adverse effects to other organs including liver and kidneys and toxic carcinogenic effects. Side effects of chemical off-gassing include headache/dizziness, irritation, hypersensitivity, nausea/vomitng, toxic and carcinogenic effects. so the risks of continuing treatment are potentially pretty severe also.

this is such a big deal that will affect so many people but ive yet to really see it talked about anywhere other than a post or two on social media, from other disabled people. hasn’t been on the news here or anything. 

[synonym-pie]

The Consumer Safety account surely has a tumblr somewhere

[kateosaurus-rex]

I don't know what's going on over there but the US Consumer Product Safety Commission appears to be having A Day