It’s obvious that you shouldn’t leave dangerous chemicals where kids can reach them – but you might not realise just how appealing the colourful bottles can be.

This video shows more than half of toddlers and young children choosing the harmful liquids over toys when given a choice.

Dutch experimenters used hidden cameras and sensors to track whether children were more attracted to traditional toys, like a teddy bear, or a bottle of toxic chemicals like detergent or bleach or a pot of paint.

A massive 82 per cent of the children, aged between one and four, went for a yellow bottle of bleach over wooden building blocks.

Children choose household chemicals like bleach over toys in scary experiment
It doesn’t look too different from a water pistol (Picture: Lemz)

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A total of 51 per cent of children chose the chemicals overall, and the video ends: ‘Don’t give kids a choice’.

The hardhitting video was made by Lemz on behalf of the Dutch Government after statistics showed there are more than 7,500 accidents involving children and chemicals every year.

As well as filming the children, he tracked their eye movements to see which they were more drawn to.

82% chose bleach over building blocks (Picture: Lemz)

If children get hold of the chemicals they could hurt themselves putting it into their mouths or burn themselves spilling it on their skin.

Parents should also make sure any medication is out of the reach of children, including pills like paracetamol tablets.