Are Squishy Toys Safe? Materials, Testing and What to Avoid

Most squishy toys are safe when they are made from stable materials, tested to a recognised toy standard and used the way they were designed. The problems that make headlines come from a narrow set of causes: cheap polyurethane foam that gives off chemical fumes, liquid or gel fills that leak or grow mould, small pieces that break off, and products that were never tested at all. If you know what a squishy is made of and whether anyone has checked it, you know most of what you need to know. Here is how to read a squishy the way a toy tester does, and what we did with our own.

• Squishy toys are safe when the material is stable, the product has been tested to a toy standard, and it is used as designed.
• The known risks are chemical fumes from cheap foam, leaking or mouldy fills, breakage into small pieces, and untested products.
• Look for a named material, a named standard such as ASTM F963 or EN 71, and a manufacturer you can contact.
• The PolySquish Discovery Series passed independent laboratory testing for mechanical safety, flammability, lead, heavy metals, phthalates, microbial cleanliness and toxicology in September 2026.

The details matter, so here they are.

Yes, if they are made from a material that does not break down under repeated squeezing. A squishy lives a hard life. It is compressed thousands of times, warmed by hands, dropped, and often chewed by somebody who should not be chewing it. A good squishy material returns to shape without cracking, does not shed dust or crumbs, and does not release anything into the air while it does so. The material to look for is a thermoplastic rubber or a dense, closed-cell foam. The material to avoid is a soft, open-cell polyurethane foam that smells strongly of chemicals when you open the packet.

Three families of material, and they behave very differently.

• Polyurethane foam. The slow-rising "kawaii" squishies of the 2010s were almost all PU foam. It is cheap and soft, but the curing process can leave behind solvents and other volatile chemicals that continue to evaporate out of the toy for weeks. This is the family that has been pulled from shelves.
• Thermoplastic rubber (TPR) shells with a gel fill. A stretchy, translucent skin around a soft core. The skin is a stable, fully cured rubber; the safety of the whole depends on what the core is made of and how well the shell is sealed.
• Silicone. Dense, heavy and very stable, silicone is used for higher-end squishies and for teething toys. It rarely causes chemical problems but is often too firm for the slow-squeeze feel people want.

The PolySquish Discovery Series sits in the second family. Each piece is a translucent TPR outer shell with a coloured, transparent maltose gel inside. Maltose is a sugar-derived gel, which is why the core is clear and why light passes through the whole object the way it passes through a CMY Cube. There are no batteries, magnets, textiles or surface coatings anywhere in the product, so there is nothing to flake, corrode or peel.

Because of chemical emissions from foam, not because squishies are dangerous as a category. In 2018 the Danish Environmental Protection Agency tested a batch of foam squishies and found that every one released chemicals into the air at levels the agency considered a health risk, including substances that can irritate the eyes and airways. Danish retailers pulled the products and the agency advised parents to throw foam squishies away. Similar concerns have been raised about "squishy" and "slime" products sold without any testing in other markets. The common thread in every case is cheap polyurethane foam plus no laboratory report. Neither applies to a squishy made from cured rubber that has been tested.

A serious toy safety test does not ask one question. It asks about a dozen, and the answers come back as pass or fail on each. For the PolySquish Discovery Series, an independent laboratory tested the product between 24 August and 7 September 2026 against the United States toy safety standard, ASTM F963-23, and the federal regulations that sit alongside it. The checklist was:

1. Mechanical safety. Sharp points, sharp edges, accessible edges and points, and the "abuse tests" that simulate a toy being dropped four times from about a metre, twisted, and pulled with a seven-kilogram load. Pass on every clause.
2. Flammability. The material must burn slower than a set rate if it burns at all. Pass.
3. Lead. Total lead in the accessible material must be under 100 parts per million. Result: not detected at the laboratory's reporting limit of 10 parts per million.
4. Eight heavy metals. Antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and selenium. All not detected.
5. Eight phthalates. The plasticisers restricted in children's products, each limited to 0.1 per cent. All not detected at a reporting limit of 0.005 per cent.
6. Microbial cleanliness. Because the fill is a gel, it was tested to the pharmacopoeia methods used for non-sterile products. Total viable count came back at 10 colony-forming units per gram against a limit of 1,000, and E. coli, Salmonella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus were all absent.
7. Toxicological risk assessment. A toxicologist reviewed the full formulation for acute and chronic toxicity, corrosion, skin and eye irritation and sensitisation under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. Pass.

The laboratory's recommended age grade is three years and over, which is the grade printed on the packaging. The full test report is held by CMY Cubes and can be provided on request.

Ask four questions of the listing or the box.

• What is it made of? A named material is a good sign. "Soft foam" with no further detail is not.
• What standard was it tested to? ASTM F963 (United States), EN 71 (Europe) or AS/NZS ISO 8124 (Australia and New Zealand). If no standard is named, assume it was not tested.
• Who made it and how do you contact them? A manufacturer or importer name and address is a legal requirement in most markets. Its absence is a warning.
• Does it smell? A strong chemical smell on opening is the single most reliable everyday sign of a foam that is still curing. Air it out or return it.

Only if moisture gets inside. Open-cell foam squishies absorb water, sweat and saliva into their structure and cannot dry out again, which is how they grow mould and develop a smell. A sealed shell with a gel core cannot absorb anything, so mould has nowhere to start. If the shell is ever punctured, though, the toy should be retired, because a torn shell is both a hygiene issue and a way for a small child to reach the fill. Wipe a shell squishy with a damp cloth and let it dry; do not soak it.

No squishy is a teether unless it is sold as one. The PolySquish Discovery Series is graded for ages three and over and its smallest piece is about fifty millimetres across, which is well above the small-parts threshold, but it is a fidget and colour-mixing object, not something to bite. If the person you are buying for mouths objects, choose a product specifically tested and labelled as a teether. This applies to every squishy on the market, whatever the material.

Almost always. Foam squishies are solid and travel without restriction. Gel-filled squishies are also routinely carried in hand luggage, and stress balls are on most airport security lists of permitted items, but a screening officer always has the final say on anything they consider a gel. If you want zero friction at the checkpoint, put it in checked baggage.

Because the physics of the squeeze is the physics of the material. Foam compresses by squashing air pockets, which is why it rises back slowly and why it degrades: every squeeze fatigues the cell walls. A TPR shell with a gel core compresses by displacing the gel, which is why it feels dense and cool, returns fully, and lasts. It is also why a translucent shell over a clear gel does something foam never can: it lets light through. Squeeze a PolySquish octahedron against a window and the colours mix and shift as the shape changes. That is the same subtractive colour mixing that runs every CMY Cube, in a form you can hold in a fist during a long meeting. The PolySquish Chameleon Series, which changes colour with temperature, is launching soon.

Squishy toys are safe when the material is stable, the product has been tested to a named toy standard, and it is used as designed. The recalls you have read about were cheap polyurethane foam with no test report behind it. Look for a named material, a named standard and a contactable maker, and trust your nose. The PolySquish Discovery Series is a cured thermoplastic rubber shell around a sugar-derived gel, independently tested to ASTM F963-23 and the associated United States chemical and toxicology requirements, and it passed every one.

See the PolySquish Discovery Series, and step into a world of colour and curiosity.