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Spooky Sewing for Safety
Halloween can be non-stop fun if you take a few minutes to think about safety when planning and creating costumes. Make sure costumes allow space for children to walk with hemlines short enough that there won’t be a risk of tripping on tails, wings, skirts or any other costume part. Even free candy isn’t as alluring when kids are dealing with scraped knees or twisted ankles caused by tripping or falling.
Face paint is always a better choice than masks, especially for small kids. Masks often obscure vision, especially peripheral vision, which makes stairs and curbs hard to navigate and causes extra risks when trying to cross streets safely.
Think carefully when choosing fabrics for costumes. Costumes purchased in retail stores are required by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to be made from fire retardant materials. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are safe, it just means they are less likely to quickly go up in a cloud of smoke.
Homemade costumes can be cheaper and just as safe, if not more so, than those purchased at the store. Fabric matters in this case. Natural fibers such as wool and linen are fire resistant (that’s what makes them such safe and period-appropriate choices for war reenactments.) Fabrics such as acrylic, nylon and polyester are also fire resistant but because they are made with plastics they tend to melt when they get hot, which can still cause some painful burns. Consider your fabrics carefully, especially if your neighbors tend to use candles or real lanterns as decorations.
There are also homemade solutions that add fire resistance to cloth using alum and borax solutions. Research this carefully before deciding if this option is right for you as it works better with some fabrics than others and therefore offers varying levels of fire resistance.
Another safety tip can be fun as well as safe. Use glow-in-the-dark paint, ribbons or buttons or add reflective tape to costumes to make trick-or-treaters easier to see in the dark. This makes it safer for them to cross streets and helps drivers to see them sooner, especially in costumes that might otherwise be all dark colors.
Kids are generally pretty excited about anything that glows in the dark so let them help by handing them a paintbrush and showing how to “power up” their glow-in-the-dark wear by holding it near a light before going outside for the evening. Some companies even make glow-in-the-dark hair spray, temporary dye or glitter!
