One of the best parts of Halloween is dressing up in Halloween costumes. Dressing in costume for Halloween dates back around 2,000 years in present day United Kingdom, Ireland, and Northern France. The time marked a period of the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter which was the cold and dark time for this region of the world.

To celebrate, the marked the time period as Samhain as their New Year on November 1. As a result, the Celts associated October 31st with death and believed that this night that the night before Samhain the boundary between the living and dead became distorted.

So, to protect themselves from the ghosts of the dead the Celts would dress in costume so that they were not recognized. In addition, they placed bowls of food outside their homes to satisfy the ghosts and keep them from entering their homes. This is where the tradition of Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating began. This tradition followed the immigrants into America and what has become known as Halloween.

Halloween Costume Ideas

While dressing up in costume for Halloween can be one of the most fun things to do for Halloween, it is often one of the hardest. Picking the perfect costume can often seem impossible. However, once you find that one costume that suits you it is always exciting. Costume ideas can range from very sexy to horrifying. There truly is an unlimited array of how you can dress up for Halloween.

In many cases, you can even create your very own costume with things you have laying around the house or by simply visiting you local Walmart. This option is pretty enticing with the price you’ll pay at your local costume store. Unfortunately, you can’t always achieve the perfect look with the do-it-yourself method. Plus if you have no idea what costume you want then going to the costume shop is definitely the way to go.

Mask or Make-up?

A common question that we hear is “should you wear a mask or make-up?” Well, there are benefits to both. You can utilize both to completely change your appearance, but make-up requires some amount of work and talent in order to successfully pull off a certain “look”. On the other hand, with a mask you can simply pull it over your head and you are pretty much ready to go. It is always good practice to at least paint around your eyes which are usually visible from outside the mask.

However, unless you get an extraordinarily expensive silicone or foam latex mask…the mask will likely look like a mask. There isn’t really any way to make a mask completely believable unless it is a skin tight silicone or foam latex mask, it is a mechanical mask (VERY expensive), or it is something like a plastic Jason mask and it is meant to be seen as a mask.

So, this leaves you with make-up. There are a number of really great make-up kits out there that even come with instructions so that you can pull off some really great effects with relative ease. Depending on the effect you are going for, it could be pretty easy to do what you want with make-up. However, there are a number of VERY tricky make-up effects as well. These will take much more time and some talent to pull off. In the future, we may post a list of some local make-up artists. If you would be interested in finding local artists OR if you are a local make-up artist, please contact us.

Lastly, one other option that you have that really tops off any mask or make-up technique are special effects contact lenses. Special effects contact lenses change the way your eyes look so that you can have some REALLY freaky eyes. It is a great way to bring your entire costume together. FX contact lenses have become surprisingly affordable!

Check out these great how-to videos from Nimba Creations!

A Few Costume Ideas

One very popular costume idea is to dress as a current political figure. In many cases these costumes embellish the person’s physical characteristics as well as poking fun at one of their current hot points. It is especially fun if you are heading over to one of your friends who may get a bit annoyed by your costume! It’s all in good fun on Halloween!

Another set of popular costumes is to dress in a sexy outfit such as a school girl outfit, a playboy bunny, hot police officer, or anything that you can fantasize…er…imagine. Sexy costumes are a pretty popular line of costumes. Especially if you are hitting the clubs! When flaunting a costume of this nature, it is often good to go out with your friends and not alone.

Movie costumes are also a popular way to dress. People have been dressing as their favorite movie stars and characters for Halloween for years! This season, you will probably see a lot of familiar faces from your favorite movies. For instance, you will likely see a lot of Harry Potter, Captain America, alien life forms from the remake of movie The Thing, vampires from the movie Fright Night, and many more. If you can watch them on the silver screen, then chances are there are costumes out there as long as it is an interesting character.

Another of the other popular ways to dress in costume is to dress in a humorous costume. Many of these can be made right in the comfort of your own home (if one is so inclined). Coming up with a costume of this nature really depends on your humor, the humor of your friends, and where you are going. However, you can also find some pretty amusing pre-fab costumes which generally result in men dressing as women, women dressing as men, phallic & breast looking props, genital jokes, and etc.

Not only can you dress on your own, but you can also dress in costume as a couple. Most of the couple’s costumes tend to be more on the humorous side. However, I have seen some pretty creepy things from couples. For instance, I have seen one couple dress as Romeo and Juliet post-suicide. Both of them looking like rotting corpses in tattered period costumes. It was a pretty twisted costume. I’ve also seen zombie couples, pirate couples, Dracula and Mina, and more! In general though, I tend to find couples costumes at stores fairly cheesy. If that’s your thing, then by all means load it on!

So, you can really come up with or find an unlimited variety of costumes. In worst case scenario, you can ALWAYS use the t-shirt with “This is my freakin’ costume” written on it. If you would like more costume ideas, please visit a local costume store and browse at their selection. Even if you don’t want to buy a costume, you can always get good ideas just by looking around. Many of the costume stores even have websites so that you can look around online!