3 Ways to Take Back Halloween

It’s October and everything is awash in orange and black. Starbucks added pumpkin to their muffins and PSL’s to their drinks menu. Instagram feeds are full of costume inspiration and storefronts are filled with spooky cats and witches.

Americans will spend $6.9 billion to dress up for Halloween. Everyone is wondering what you will go as? Perhaps a sexy Black Widow? Or a sexy Minion? For a truly terrifying look, you could go as a sexy Donald Trump.

Disturbing no matter who you’d like to be, for women and younger and younger girls everything is skimpy and supposed to scream “I am a sex-siren.” Even if you go as the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

What has become of the top 2016 costumes that we searched for on Amazon, Walmart and Party City?  Americans throw out 12,500 tons of Halloween costumes – that’s a football stadium filled 14 feet deep with halloween trash – every year!

Photo: Emaze

But what if you took a closer look at that poorly made costume. Where was it made? China perhaps or Bangladesh? Just for a second imagine the young woman who made it for you.

She is 19 years old. Halloween is her worst nightmare. It’s rush orders of cheap clothing, which means long hours, with supervisors yelling and humiliating her to move faster and faster.

While you danced all night at a club, she sat up all night, making very little, to get you that itchy, sticky costume. You and she both touched the nasty flame retardant chemicals that go into the plastic and polyester fabric. How would she feel, knowing her hard work was tossed into a landfill after just one night of revelry?

What if we took Halloween back this year?

What if we said no thank you to an industry that is made of toxins, harsh working conditions and the sexualization of young girls and women? Here are three ideas to buy better this Halloween:

1. DIY

There’s no better party conversation starter than a costume you glued, taped, and stapled together. So go on, check out this Pinterest board and let your imagination fly.

Photo: POPSUGAR

2. Swap

Stop the flow of costumes into landfills by shopping on eBay or at vintage stores. Better yet, have your besties brings their costumes from last year to a pre-party at your place – turn up the music, swap and even coordinate costumes.

Photo: POPSUGAR

3. Buy hand made

Companies like Spirit have faced backlash from stealing designs from indie costumers, so you might as well go to the source. You can email a maker on sites like Etsy to sew a toxin-free, hand made costume. Then rock out knowing that she was fairly paid and your costume was the talk of the party.