Novelty lighters may look funky but it’s not all fun and games as they can and often do cause real harm if they’re not up to standard.

Currently, many novelty lighters fall outside of the mandatory product safety standard applicable to cigarette lighters.

This safety standard only applies to cigarette lighters and some novelty lighters that are disposable, or refillable lighters with a customs value of less than $3.50.

Novelty lighters are any lighter that produce a flame and are designed to look like another object eg. a cellphone shaped lighter or a wizard wand with detachable tip and wizard sound effects.

Unfortunately there’s a long list of reported injuries relating to novelty lighters, many of these happening to kids given their toy-like appeal.

Trade Me cares about the safety of our members and their families and we’ve chatted with a number of key stakeholders about the sale of novelty lighters on the site.

We reckon safety comes first so made the decision to no longer allow the sale of novelty lighters on Trade Me from 15 January 2015.

If you’d like more info about the mandatory safety standard check it out.

Creative Commons image used courtesy Joe Haupt on Flickr.

Novelty cigarette lighters banned from Trade Me