CPSA Compliance

Last year, I decided to start decorating infant and children's apparel. After my first sale, I found out that I was breaking the law. 

I learned that the federal government requires all infant and children's apparel to pass certain safety requirements, particularly with apparel that has had materials applied, as decoration, to the garment.

I thought I'd share a little bit about those laws and what I have done to become compliant with those laws, so that you know your sweet little ones are safe in spirit wear from Central Texas Spirit Wear.

When I first began looking into these requirements, I was totally confused. Hint. Don't read Facebook and Google for information on the law. Go to the source. 

In this case, the source is The United States Consumer Safety Product Commission. 
The specific law that pertains to apparel from CTSW is the Child Safety Product ACT or CPSA. 

The CSPA amends certain provisions of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act to better protect small children from choking hazards. The CSPA requires warning labels on specific products and  mandates that manufacturers, importers, distributors, and retailers report certain choking incidents.

Central Texas Spirit Wear registers, yearly, with CPSC as a small batch manufacturer. It is my responsibility to (a) make sure that the garments and decorative materials that I chose are safe and to (b) pass that information along to my customer.
And this is how I am doing that:

I also keep records of materials and garments on file to show they, themselves, are compliant with the law.

That is the basic gist of it. I did find the folks at CPSC to be incredibly helpful via email. There are Facebook groups dedicated to this topic. They are helpful but also can be confusing. That is why it it important to get the information from the source.