Hello Toothpaste Heavy Metals Lawsuit: Is Hello Toothpaste Safe?

Hello Products LLC makes hello toothpaste, a brand owned by Colgate-Palmolive and sold with playful kids packaging and "natural" flavor claims. The lawsuits say those tubes contain lead, and in some cases mercury, that the companies did not disclose.

Browne v. Hello Products (New York)

Filed July 10, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and assigned to Judge J. Paul Oetken, Browne is now the lead case. Related suits have been folded in, including Tal Nelkin v. Hello Products LLC, which was moved from Los Angeles to New York in February 2026.

Barton v. Colgate-Palmolive (California)

California parents Nathan Barton and Cynthia Fahrnkopf sued on October 22, 2025 in the Southern District of California over hello kids Unicorn Sparkle, Smiling Shark, and Dragon Dazzle. The Barton complaint says lab testing commissioned by the plaintiffs' lawyers found lead in every tested hello kids variety at 236 to 658 parts per billion (ppb). It claims violations of California's Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and seeks refunds, not damages for physical injury. On March 12, 2026, the New York court granted an unopposed motion to consolidate Barton into Browne.

Other toothpaste heavy metal cases

• Brower v. Colgate-Palmolive Company, No. 1:25-cv-03348 (S.D.N.Y.), over lead and mercury in several Colgate toothpastes. It is covered in detail on our Colgate lawsuit page.
• White v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., No. 1:25-cv-00662 (E.D.N.Y.), filed February 6, 2025 over lead and arsenic in Tom's of Maine Kid's Natural Fluoride-Free Toothpaste in Silly Strawberry. The parties stipulated to dismissal with prejudice, and the court closed the case on August 4, 2026.

Hello and Colgate deny the allegations. None of the claims have been proven.

Most of the public attention traces to crowdfunded lab testing by Lead Safe Mama, LLC, a lead poisoning prevention advocacy business run by Tamara Rubin. It published its chart in 2025 and updated it on April 22, 2025. It is consumer advocacy testing, not an FDA study, and each figure reflects the sample tested.

Across the full chart, 46 of 51 products tested positive for lead (90%), 33 for arsenic (65%), 24 for mercury (47%), and 18 for cadmium (35%). A handful of kids' products, such as Dr. Brown's Baby Toothpaste and Orajel Training Toothpaste, had no detectable lead, cadmium, mercury, or arsenic.

The Guardian, reporting on the results on April 17, 2025, noted that none of the products exceeded federal limits, and that the highest readings exceeded Washington state's newer limit of 1,000 ppb. Rubin has pointed to ingredients such as hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate, and bentonite clay as likely sources.

No court or federal agency has declared hello toothpaste unsafe, and it has not been recalled. At the same time, the FDA says there is no known safe level of exposure to lead, and children are the most sensitive. The practical questions for parents are how much toothpaste a child uses and how much is swallowed.

• The measured lead levels in the chart are in the hundreds of parts per billion. Toothpaste is used in small amounts and mostly spit out, which is very different from eating food at those levels.
• Young children do swallow some toothpaste. Using a rice-grain smear for toddlers and a pea-sized amount for older kids, and supervising brushing, reduces exposure from any brand.
• If you are worried about lead exposure from any source, a pediatrician can order a simple blood lead test.

This is general information, not medical advice. If you switch brands, check whether a replacement has been tested; some products marketed as "natural" scored worse in the chart than mainstream brands.

For context on how regulators think about lead in personal care products, the FDA has issued guidance recommending that lead in cosmetic lip products and externally applied cosmetics stay at or below 10 parts per million (10,000 ppb), and its data show over 99% of those products on the U.S. market are below that level. The hello readings in the Lead Safe Mama chart, 428.4 and 493 ppb, are far under that benchmark, although toothpaste is used in the mouth, and advocates argue any avoidable lead exposure for children is worth reducing.

Hello and Colgate moved to dismiss the consolidated New York case on June 11, 2026. The plaintiffs opposed on July 16, 2026, and the defense filed its reply on August 6, 2026. As of September 2026, the judge had not ruled.

The same judge's June 25, 2026 decision in the Colgate heavy metals case offers a preview. In Brower, he held that claims faulting a toothpaste label for not disclosing heavy metals are preempted by 21 U.S.C. section 379r(a), because FDA rules for anticavity toothpaste do not require that disclosure. He let claims proceed that voluntary marketing statements were misleading, and he dismissed plaintiffs who could not connect the testing to the products they personally bought. Hello's "natural" and kid-focused marketing is likely to be tested under the same framework.

No class has been certified. That step, if it happens, would come after the motion to dismiss. Read our guide on how long class action lawsuits take for a realistic timeline.

There is no hello settlement, and it is possible the case is dismissed. If it does settle, consumer refund settlements for toothpaste tend to be modest. The closest recent example is the Tom's of Maine contamination settlement: a $2.9 million fund that offered the average retail price of one product per household without receipts, or refunds for up to three products with proof of purchase, both subject to pro rata reduction.

A few points to keep expectations realistic:

• Refund cases pay back part or all of what you spent, not compensation for worry or hypothetical harm.
• Receipts usually raise the amount you can claim. See settlements that pay without proof of purchase for how that works.
• A child with a documented elevated blood lead level and a plausible link to a product is a different kind of claim, handled individually, and much harder to prove.

The plaintiffs rely on state consumer protection laws that ban misleading labeling and omissions, along with common law fraud by omission and unjust enrichment. In California, the Consumers Legal Remedies Act has a three-year statute of limitations and the Unfair Competition Law has four, which is why the Barton class reaches back four years.

Fluoride toothpaste is an over-the-counter drug under federal law, and that is the defense's strongest card. The FDA sets the labeling rules through its anticavity monograph, and states cannot add different or additional label requirements. The plaintiffs' path around that is to attack statements the company chose to make, such as "natural" or kid-friendly safety messages, as affirmatively misleading. Fluoride-free hello products may be argued differently, since they are not sold under the anticavity drug monograph.

A case like this becomes a class action only if a judge certifies the class; until then it is a proposed class.

Parents searching whether hello is safe usually want a practical answer: what else can I buy? The same 2025 chart that flagged hello also sorted products by lead level, and the low end is useful. These are single-sample results from advocacy testing, not certifications, and formulas can change.

Two patterns stand out. First, "natural" and "clean" branding did not predict low results; several tooth powders and clay-based products tested far higher than mainstream tubes. The three highest readings in the chart, from 3,500 to 7,800 ppb, were all tooth powders or clay-based natural products, not mainstream fluoride pastes. Second, most of the no-detect products were training gels or baby formulas, which are designed to be swallowed safely in small amounts.

What to look for on a label, based on the ingredients Lead Safe Mama flagged as likely sources:

• Bentonite or kaolin clay: the products with the highest lead levels in the chart all contained bentonite clay.
• Calcium carbonate: a common abrasive; the single-ingredient sample tested at 292 ppb lead.
• Hydroxyapatite: popular in fluoride-free pastes; the single-ingredient sample tested at 268.7 ppb lead.

Switching to a fluoride-free paste is a separate decision to make with your child's dentist, since fluoride is the ingredient anticavity toothpastes rely on. The key exposure control for any brand is the amount used and whether it is swallowed.

1. Save proof of purchase. Pull receipts from store apps, Amazon, Target, or Walmart order histories.
2. Photograph the tubes you still have, including the lot code.
3. Talk to your pediatrician if you are concerned about lead exposure, and keep the records.
4. Watch for a court notice. You do not need to do anything to stay in a proposed class.
5. Ignore anyone charging a fee to "enroll" you in a toothpaste settlement. There is none yet, and real claims are always filed free on the official settlement website.

If your child had an elevated blood lead level, or you want to know whether your purchases fit a pending case, independent attorneys who handle product contamination cases can look at the details. A free case review takes about two minutes. You can also see related claims about heavy metals in baby food and heavy metals in candy.