2,165 dishes scanned with a niton xl5 plus. Thrift store racks. Target shelves. Your mom's china cabinet. If it's in here, you'll know in three seconds whether to throw it out.
Search the database →Free. No email. Three seconds.
I'm Eric. I started DetectLead because I kept getting the same email. "my pediatrician just called. My kid is at 5.2. We don't know where it came from." every time, we'd start with the kitchen. Every time, it was a plate.
So I bought a $30,000 niton xl5 plus XRF gun and started shooting dishes. Thrift store hauls. Brand new sets from costco. My mom's wedding china. I logged 2,165 of them. The database below is that work, with the lead ppm and a verdict on every piece.
Nobody tested the plate you eat off of. brands change suppliers. Lots change formulas. The only test that counts is the one on the plate in your hand.
The reagent is methylammonium bromide in isopropanol. When it hits lead pigment in painted decoration, it forms a perovskite quantum dot that fluoresces bright green under 365 nm UV. 30 seconds. Lead glows. No lead, no glow. The chemistry was published in nature in 2014. I didn't invent it. I just built the bottle.
Daniella · 4 months
"my daughter was at 3.4 µg/dL. I drip-tested every plate in the house. Half of them glowed, including the set I'd eaten off of since college. Four months after we replaced them, her blood lead was undetectable."
Dr. Jessica · 8 months
"two kids, both elevated. We found three sources in our kitchen alone: my grandmother's plates, a hand-painted bowl from mexico, a vintage mug I used for coffee. Eight months later, both kids undetectable."
2,165 scanned. Type a brand, a store, or what the thing is. If I've shot it, you'll see the verdict in seconds.
I have drip-tested thousands of secondhand dishes over the last five years. Glazed ceramic from before 1985 lights up green under UV at a rate that surprises most people. Vintage Pyrex with painted decals, hand-painted Italian and Mexican folk pottery, decorative dinner plates, the patterned bowls people collect at flea markets, all of these test positive at meaningful rates. The price tag has nothing to do with safety. Some of the most expensive antique-store finds glow brightest. The rule I follow, every used dish I bring home gets the drip before it touches food.
Federal action levels for lead in dishware exist, but enforcement is sparse and import inspection is rare. Imported brands self-certify. Big-box closeouts and TJ Maxx style channels often skip meaningful testing. Painted decoration on the eating surface is the highest-risk pattern, and that pattern shows up in items sold this year. When I drip-tested a sample of recent imported ceramic mugs from a major retailer, a few of them glowed. Test the actual dish in your hand.
The database is the spot check. The kit is the audit. One drop, 30 seconds, every dish in the house tested before bed.
If all this did was find one plate in your kitchen that was poisoning your kid, would it be worth $320? Would it be worth $75?
Full Fluoro-Spec test kit
$320$75One-time
Thousands of tests per kit. Every plate in the house. Every coffee mug. Every painted bowl. Tonight.
The reagent is consumable so I can't take it back. But if you test your dishes and decide this wasn't worth your money, email me at Eric@DetectLead.com any time in the first 365 days. I refund every cent and you keep the kit. No return, no form. One email.
Swab kits use sodium rhodizonate. They detect leachable lead on a contact surface. They miss lead glaze that's not leaching today but will after a year of dishwasher cycles. They also miss lead in painted decoration. Perovskite spectroscopy finds the lead in the pigment itself, not just the surface. You scan the dish, you don't decide it's safe based on a momentary leach test.
Yes, and you should. I've drip-tested dishes from every major retailer. Some new imported ceramic mugs glow on contact. Enforcement of federal lead-in-dishware limits is sparse. The price tag has nothing to do with safety.
Both. Lead glaze, lead-glaze-under-clear, lead in painted decals, lead in hand-painted decoration. The chemistry binds to lead atoms regardless of which layer of the dish they're in.
Get a blood lead test from your pediatrician. Then start removing exposures. Daniella's daughter went from 3.4 to undetectable in 4 months. The body clears it when the source goes away.
No. Not in the database means I haven't scanned that specific piece. The kit is the only way to know about the specific dish in your hand.
"the cheapest way to find lead in your house is to stop guessing. One drop. 30 seconds. The plate tells you."
— Eric · DetectLead
Six tools my family uses to keep our kid under the FDA action threshold. Type your email. You get all six on this page in two seconds.
I copied your email to the list. The first email lands in a couple minutes. Open the pack below now.
Bookmark this page. The database and the leaducational pages update almost every day. The bottle sheet and the dish list grow as the lab finishes new runs.
The information is free. The kit is for parents who, after reading the framework, decide they want to walk around the nursery with a drop bottle tonight. One drop of Fluoro-Spec on the painted side of a plate. If it's lead, it glows green in seconds. No lab.
See the Drip Kit, $50 →