A leather handbag has been recalled after testing found levels of a banned chemical linked to a skin allergy that, once triggered, never goes away.
Chromium. In a £50 handbag. And, surprisingly, it’s not for the first time.
The Brampton Black Leather Handbag, sold at TK Maxx between December 2025 and May 2026, has been withdrawn after testing found chromium (VI) above the legal limit for leather that touches the skin. Anyone who bought it should stop using it and take it back to any TK Maxx store for a refund or replacement.
The same shop window on Putney High Street also carries a dress with a sting: an expanded recall of the Occasion Dress line, American Princess and Couture Princess, sold March to April 2026, for a wired hem that can work loose and poke through the fabric. Ouch. Wearers should stop wearing it and return it the same way.
It’s the fifth set of recalls since April, providing a steady stream of worrying consumer warnings and flagging just how unusual mass processing of goods can be, whether that is spatulas with dangerous chemicals, asbestos in sand, loose wiring in chargers, or overheating blankets.
What’s actually in the leather
In case you’re wondering, yes, Chromium is broadly the same substance as chrome but used very differently. Chrome plating, the shiny metal on a shower head or a bag’s buckles, is a thin layer of actual chromium metal, electroplated onto something else underneath for shine and rust resistance. It sits on the surface.
Chrome tanning is a different process entirely: chromium salts are used to treat the hide itself, chemically binding into the leather’s fibres to make it soft and durable. There’s no metal coating in sight. The chromium VI in this recall isn’t either of those. It’s an unwanted trace that can form as a byproduct of the tanning chemistry, not something added on purpose the way plating is, and not sitting in a metal layer the way it does on a tap.
Properly controlled, it shouldn’t happen. In practice, surveys in Germany and Denmark, cited in the European Chemicals Agency’s own restriction report, have repeatedly found more than three in ten leather items over the legal limit.
That limit, 3mg/kg, is set at the point where the standard test for chromium VI stops being able to see anything at all. The test, EN ISO 17075, can reliably detect the chemical down to that figure and no lower. The law bans anything at or above it for the same reason: there’s no reliable way to certify a “safe trace” beneath it. Chemists simply haven’t found a way to see “a little” yet, and until they do, “a little” is treated as “some.” It’s a statement about the limits of measurement, not a precise reading of how dangerous one bag is.
The actual risk here is allergic contact dermatitis, a skin allergy, not a cancer risk: Chromium VI is treated as a carcinogen in a completely different context: industrial inhalation, in factories and chrome-plating shops, which is why EU regulators are separately working through a wider clampdown on the chemical in manufacturing.
The problem with exposure is surprisingly widespread. Chromium allergy affects around one in a hundred people, and once someone is sensitised, it typically doesn’t go away. In one of the longest-followed groups of chromium-allergic patients, close to eight in ten were still testing positive four to seven years after their last known exposure.
If this sounds familiar
TK Maxx has been caught red-handed on this one before, so to speak: in 2022 it recalled a pair of Ashwood women’s leather gloves for the same fault, chromium VI above the legal limit.
And the problem is a growing one. As chromium has been cleaned out of some of its historical sources, especially cement which used to be the leading cause of the allergy in Europe, leather has taken up more of the slack. In Denmark, the share of chromium allergy cases traced to leather rose from around a quarter in the early 1990s to more than half by the 2010s. The European Chemicals Agency, the regulator that set the leather limit, estimates its ban is preventing around 11,000 new cases of the allergy across the EU every year, which is either an impressive win for regulation or a sobering measure of how bad things were before it, depending on how you like your silver – or chrome – linings.
If you have sensitive skin or eczema and own leather goods, not just this bag, a GP or dermatologist can arrange patch testing if you suspect a reaction. Chrome-free or vegetable-tanned leather, increasingly labelled as such at the point of sale, is an alternative worth seeking out, whether that’s a new bag, a pair of gloves or a pair of shoes – and maybe give the wardrobe a once-over while you’re at it.
