SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) -South Korea's squishy-toy craze is getting a sober safety check.
In Seoul's Dongdaemun toy district, the old staples of childhood are still everywhere.
Children weave between shops packed floor to ceiling with transforming robots, Lego sets, dolls and BB guns.
Wedged among them is a newer kind of toy, designed less to build or shoot than to squeeze, stretch and crack.
There are croissant-shaped squishies, tubs of brightly colored slime, stretchy "slang-i" toys and wax-covered balls that split under pressure to reveal soft clay inside.
AJP arrived in the district around 9 a.m. Wednesday and bought several tactile toys. Some cost as little as 1,500 won ($1). Most squishies were priced between 3,000 and 4,000 won, while large tubs of slime reached 12,000 won.
The differences became obvious once the packages were opened.
A croissant-shaped squishy released a surprisingly convincing smell of melted butter when squeezed. A dumpling-shaped toy concealed different colors inside, turning each pull into a small guessing game.
Others were less inviting.
Several gave off strong, unpleasant odors. One wax ball cracked under the fingers to expose a soft filling, but both its smell and texture were harsher than those of the sweeter-scented toys.
The experience was tactile, not scientific. Smell, softness or stickiness alone cannot determine whether a toy is safe.
What stood out before the packages were even opened was something else.
The tactile products AJP examined were marked for ages 14 and older. AJP did not find KC safety marks on the packages it examined.
That distinction matters because products marketed for ages 14 and older can fall outside mandatory children's-product KC safety requirements even when similar toys are widely used by much younger children.
On Monday, the Seoul Metropolitan Government released safety tests of 20 products labeled for ages 14 and older but considered likely to be used by children.
Seven raised chemical or physical safety concerns when measured against standards applied to children's products. Five were tactile products including squishies, slime and wax balls.
A "slang-i" bought from a domestic stationery store contained phthalate plasticizers in some soft plastic parts at up to 1.8 times the children's benchmark. Its plastic zipper bag contained phthalates at 142.7 times the benchmark and cadmium at 1.5 times the level.
A slime product contained formaldehyde at 2.3 times the children's benchmark and methanol at 1.3 times.
One wax ball had phthalates in a plastic decoration at 51.8 times the benchmark, while boron in its clay-like filling reached up to 1.2 times the reference level.
Another wax ball bought through AliExpress contained the preservatives CMIT and MIT, substances Seoul said can irritate skin or trigger allergic reactions.
A separate squishy had phthalates on its surface at 164.2 times the children's benchmark.
The findings did not amount to a legal determination that the products were unsafe.
Seoul did not classify them as children's products or find them in violation of the Children's Products Safety Special Act. Instead, the city applied children's safety standards for comparison because younger consumers were considered likely to use the products despite their 14+ labels.
It asked overseas platforms to halt sales of tested products that exceeded the comparison standards and distributed safety information to elementary schools and major toy-shopping areas.
The issue therefore goes beyond what is printed on the package.
Government guidelines say a product's function, intended age, packaging, advertising, consumer perception and place of sale can all be considered when determining whether it should be treated as a children's product.
Products that could be mistaken for children's goods but are intended for older users should be clearly labeled and distributed separately from places that mainly sell children's products.
In Dongdaemun, that line is harder to see.
The 14+ tactile products examined by AJP were sold among robots, dolls and other toys that have drawn families to the district for decades.
For Jannise Borger, a 42-year-old Australian visiting Korea with her children, the toy district was one of the family's first stops after arriving in the country.
"They've been looking forward to it so much," Borger said.
She said squishy toys are particularly popular among children ages 7 to 10 in Australia and estimated that some products cost roughly twice as much there.
She was also struck by the district itself.
In Australia, Borger said, families are more accustomed to buying toys from large retailers than walking through an entire neighborhood of small toy stores.
Children are not the only customers.
Ariel Kim, a woman in her 20s living in Seoul's Gangnam district, regularly buys slime, slang-i toys and wax balls.
She recalled a previous visit to Dongdaemun as "chaos," with crowds making it difficult even to reach some stores. These days, she mostly orders the toys online.
"They don't cost that much, so I don't think I really pay attention to whether something is an original product or not," Kim said.
She said she often replaces slime and similar toys after one or two weeks.
"I really like that chewy, stretchy feeling," she said. "When I'm playing with it, time goes faster than I expect."
YouTube ASMR videos also lead her to try new products.
Wax balls have less staying power.
"The first time I tried one, it was really fascinating," Kim said. "But once you crack it, that's basically it."
Reports about potentially harmful substances have not stopped her from buying tactile toys.
"I'm also not at an age where I'm going to eat a wax ball," she said. "I try to be careful, but I don't worry about it that much."
For younger children, exposure can be different.
A 2022 study of 127 slime products sold in Seoul and four other Asian cities found that 70.1 percent exceeded the European Union boron migration limit used in the study. Researchers also detected CMIT and MIT in substantial shares of the samples and identified hand-to-mouth behavior as an important exposure route for younger children.
Safety concerns around squishy toys are not new in Korea.
The Korea Consumer Agency tested 12 squishy products in 2018 and found that all released dimethylformamide, or DMF. Six were assessed as posing a potential concern for children aged 3 or younger under the agency's exposure scenario.
All 12 carried KC marks at the time, although most had shortcomings in other required labeling.
The latest Seoul tests raise a different question.
They focused on products marked 14+, placing them outside automatic KC requirements for children's goods even as children remain drawn to the same bright colors, playful shapes and tactile textures.
That does not prove manufacturers are using age labels to evade safety rules.
It does show how blurry the line can become when the age printed on a package does not neatly match the market around it.
Back in Dongdaemun, the 14+ symbol occupies only a small corner of the brightly colored packaging.
The label says 14 and older.
The shelves tell a more complicated story.
AJP Takeaways
· Seoul's latest safety tests found concerns in 7 of 20 products labeled for ages 14 and older, including five tactile toys such as squishies, slime and wax balls.
· Some tested products contained phthalates, formaldehyde, methanol, boron, CMIT or MIT above children's-product comparison benchmarks.
· The products were not legally classified as unsafe children's goods, but their 14+ labels can place them outside mandatory children's-product KC requirements.
· AJP found 14+ tactile toys being sold among children's toys in Dongdaemun, highlighting a gap between age labeling and real-world use.
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