When I was trick or treating in the 70’s the costumes were nothing like they are today. I remember putting on my garbage bag type jumpsuit and my hard plastic mask with the thin stretchy string that was stapled to each side. We didn’t have to worry about recalls on Halloween makeup or face paints since they were rarely used back then.

Over the years I have seen less and less masks and more children with painted faces. It is believed that the face paints are safer as they do not obstruct the child’s view or limit the child’s peripheral vision. While this may be true, what about the ingredients in the make-up and paints that are being used today?

In October 1998 a message circulated stating that there was some face paint on the market that was poisonous. The ingredient that parents were told to check for in their child’s face paint was methadigitactylasine. Cautious parents checked all the packaging for this ingredient and luckily the make-up and face paints they purchased did not contain methadigitactylasine. I am not surprised that it was not found in the list of ingredients because it does not exist.

This was a hoax and it did not take long for it to be debunked. Although the hoax was short lived it still managed to reach enough people that when an actual recall on a specific vinyl vampire cape and witch’s broom was issued on October 28, 1998 several people ignored it thinking it was just another hoax. Fortunately I have not found any documentation of any children being injured by the recalled products.

The poisonous face paint is just one of the hoaxes that revolve around Halloween. There are hoaxes about candy being injected with poison and razor blades in apples but that does not mean that there isn’t some truth to them. There is a documented case where an eight-year-old boy died on October 31, 1974 after eating a Pixy Stix. The candy the boy ate was not from a friendly neighbor but was a planned murder carefully calculated from a child’s own father. The father had also put the cyanide-laced Pixy Stix in his daughter’s and a couple of other children’s trick or treat bags in an effort to make the crime untraceable. The little boy was the only one of the children that ingested the poisoned candy and the father was found guilty of murder.

Even though the majority of stories you hear that surround Halloween are false it does not mean that you should not check your child’s candy or investigate any recalls that you hear about. At this time of year it is the parent’s turn to do the homework.