4 Ways To Find Eco-Friendly Halloween Costumes On A Budget
What are you wearing for Halloween this year? Ditch the cheap, plastic costume from a big box or Halloween pop-up shop and consider other more eco-friendly and affordable alternatives. Read on for four ways to find eco-friendly Halloween costumes on a budget!
The National Retail Foundation projected that people in the United States would spend $4.1 billion on Halloween costumes in 2019. That’s a lot of money for something that will likely end up in the trash after a few hours of use. What a bummer!
There are so many eco-friendly Halloween costume options, including less expensive ones than their conventional counterparts. Here are several ideas for low-waste and eco-friendly Halloween costumes, many of which will also be a welcome break for your bank account.
Swap Halloween Costumes on Neighborhood Facebook Groups
Many people wear Halloween costumes only once or twice before packing them away or outgrowing them. Consider swapping costumes with friends and neighbors, especially when searching for low-waste Halloween costumes for kids.
Buy Nothing Groups or Mom/Parent Groups on Facebook offer an excellent forum for setting up Halloween costume swaps. Create a thread to share last year’s Halloween costumes that you can pass on to others in the group. Alternatively, I asked the Admins in our local Buy Nothing Group to create a “Halloween” post topic to group and search for all listings related to Halloween costumes and decor.
Best of all, it’s really easy and entirely free to set up a Halloween thread or post if you’re already in a neighborhood Facebook group or Buy Nothing group. Start the thread to share costumes and return a few days later to see what others have offered. It’s pretty incredible how much we can make better use of our resources when we share with neighbors and friends.
Host a Halloween Costume Swap At School or Daycare
Parent-teacher associations through school and daycare centers could also host Halloween costume swaps. They might be able to use it as a small fundraiser, charging a nominal fee of $3-$5 per costume, with all proceeds donated to the organization or an important local charity.
For those in hybrid schools, consider hanging a rack of costumes outside the school in the parking lot and allowing parents to shop for costumes, one at a time, around school pick-up and drop-off windows.
If the parent-teacher organization has a Facebook page, you could use it to share available items, much like Buy Nothing Groups do. Allow people to post available costumes, comment on those they would like to receive, and offer contactless pick-up when recipients pick up costumes.
You may also consider an email distribution list that includes photos of available costumes with payment made via Venmo or PayPal and costumes picked up before or after school at an outdoor location.
With all the fantastic costumes purchased each year and only worn for a couple of hours, we know there must be so many wonderful costumes dying to find a new friend to show it off! I gifted my boys’ dragon and white tiger costumes from last year, and I love that they will find new homes now that they are too small for my kids.
Create Your Own Simple DIY Halloween Costumes
Some DIY costumes are pretty epic, but they don’t have to be complicated or expensive. Consider pieces you already have in a play closet or jerseys and uniforms from sports teams that could double as simple Halloween costumes. This year, my older son plans to wear his hockey uniform as a costume to dress up as a hockey player. He’s also dressed up as a baseball player. We’re done with his costume and didn’t spend a dime!
While the ideas that pop up on Instagram tend to be a little too advanced for my style, Pinterest has many ideas, including many easy DIY Halloween costumes. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so check out what creative minds have shared on Pinterest (and shamelessly copy their brilliance).
I also love all the Halloween costume ideas from Primary. Primary is a great sustainable kids’ clothing brand that makes all sorts of clothes in bright, solid colors. Many of their pieces are great foundations for Halloween costumes. They have a whole section on their site dedicated to DIY Halloween costumes for kids and even set up a Costume Concierge service this year to help parents find great DIY Halloween costumes.
Want to know the best part about using Primary pieces for Halloween costumes? After Halloween, your kiddos can wear the basic pieces again and again. No single-use Halloween costumes headed right to the trash!
When they were younger, our boys dressed up in a white tiger DIY costume and a ninja DIY costume, both of which used Primary pajamas as the foundation for the costume. A few years ago, the boys chose to wear simple Captain America and Elmo DIY costumes for Halloween. I used sweatshirts and sweatpants from Primary for these costumes as well. In all cases, I loved that the boys wore the Primary tops and bottoms many more times than just for Halloween.
Furthermore, Primary prioritizes sustainability throughout many aspects of its production and business. I’ve shared a whole lot more about Primary in this post about sustainable kids’ clothing brands.
Search Etsy for Halloween Costume Accessories
Etsy is ripe with amazing Halloween costumes and accessories from artisans and makers. Before defaulting to Amazon or another big box store for the same costume three other kids at school will wear, spend a few minutes searching Etsy. I bet you’ll find an amazing costume for a very reasonable price.
When my older son asked to dress up as a white tiger for Halloween last year, I found the white tiger mask, gloves, and tail as a set on Etsy. My DIY skills are pretty average. I can throw together a few things that are rough around the edges, but I don’t tend to take on DIY projects that are too fancy or technical.
I paired the mask, gloves, and tail set with a basic white pajama top and white pajama bottom from Primary. I used an old black undershirt (that once belonged to my husband) to create black stripes from fabric strips. I spent about ten minutes gluing fabric strips onto the white Primary pajama shirt and pants, which exhausted my willingness to DIY components of my kids’ Halloween costumes.
Thus, the amazing Halloween costume accessories on Etsy proved a lifesaver, and my son was so pumped about his costume! Etsy was the perfect option for just the right details to make his costume great!
I loved the white tiger costume accessory set so much that I returned to the same vendor when my younger son asked to be a black jaguar for Halloween. The white tiger pieces were of such great quality that I requested a black mask, gloves, and tail set to be custom-made for my son.
We shopped his closet for a long sleeve black shirt and black workout tights to wear with the Etsy Halloween costume accessories to finish it off perfectly. He will certainly wear these for many months to come!
As we rush around in life, it’s easy to succumb to the belief that buying a single-use, plastic costume from a big box store or Amazon will save us time and money. With a bit of searching through your home for things you already have, you might be surprised how quickly you can pull together a simple Halloween costume with items on hand (which saves both time not spent ordering and money not buying the items you’ll likely only use once).
If you plan to purchase a costume, browsing Etsy takes no more time than searching other sites, especially if you have a specific idea in mind. It’s a great way to support small businesses. On Etsy, you can even message the shop owner to ask questions or have the costume customized. Big box stores offer no access to the designers or makers and provide limited options to make costumes special or unique.
Despite Americans spending so much money on Halloween costumes, we don’t have to fall into the consumerism cycle. There are far too many options for amazing and affordable Halloween costumes that don’t deplete our bank accounts and inundate our landfills a few hours later.
How do you do Halloween costumes? Do you make your own or swap with neighbors? If you have other eco-friendly Halloween costume ideas, I’d love to hear them in the comments. I’m all ears (of candy corn). 🙂
