Big or small, many people in Germany are now celebrating Halloween. We have scoured the internet for you and collected tips on how you can easily make the scary horror festival more sustainable.
Pumpkin grimaces everywhere
The pumpkin is an absolute decorative classic in autumn. We prefer him to be hollowed out with a grimace and a candle for Halloween. Since it is currently part of the seasonal fruit vegetables, you can buy it without a guilty conscience. If you then pay attention to which variety you are bringing home and whether it is organic, you will get your first star from us. Because with the right variety, the pulp and seeds can be further processed after hollowing out. You can find delicious pumpkin recipes on almost every corner this time of year.
To ensure that your creepy guardian can do his job for a long time, you should spray the interfaces with a mixture of equal parts vinegar and water after carving and let it dry well. Then he stays for a long time without getting legs and keeps the evil spirits away even after Halloween.
We give you a bonus star if you pour your candles yourself from leftover wax or if you buy new candles that are made from beeswax, soy wax, rapeseed or sunflower oil. You outrageous environmental pro, you.
Not a big fan of carvings and candle wax, but love to eat pumpkins? Then simply decorate with edible pumpkins on which you draw or glue faces. As long as they are kept cool and dry they won't go mushy or go bad and by Christmas you'll probably have all of them. Muahahahaha!
Creepy decoration fun
Halloween without decorations is boring! No question at all. But does it really have to be new plastic decorations from the store every year? Instead, spend some time with friends and family and get creative. For example, empty toilet paper rolls are the best base for many cute monsters. Whether bat, mummy or pumpkin, there are no limits to your creativity. Speaking of mummy, with gauze bandages everything becomes a walking corpse from ancient Egypt. Try it and wrap some gauze from the expired first aid kit around an empty, clean jam jar. Just paint eyes on it, put a candle in it and bang, you have a horrible lantern.
Of course, we also have a few tips for friends of the simpler scary decorations whose artistic skills are still in their infancy. For example, ghosts can be made from leftover white fabric or handkerchiefs without much effort. To do this, form a small ball of whatever material is available to you, such as a crumpled newspaper page, wrap it in the handkerchief or scrap of fabric, and tie it in place with a piece of thread. Now paint or glue eyes on and voilà, the ghost is done. Or you put a couple of toothpicks in a chestnut or acorn, draw lots of little eyes on it and you have a cute little spider that always stays where it is. Hopefully!
Scary good costumes
Of course, anyone who celebrates Halloween also needs a costume. But you don't have to buy something new every year and, above all, no environmentally harmful polyester pieces from the Far East. Why not just revive a classic? An old bed sheet riddled with a few holes makes a perfect ghost costume, which you can also use for the annual TikTok trend. No white sheet at hand? No problem, then you just fell into the paint pot. Should someone claim otherwise?
Black clothes from head to toe and some textile paint and you'll not only be a skeleton in no time, but also refreshed your knowledge of anatomy. What a fox! Or you grab the old clothes that already have a hole or tear, paint a few bloody stains on them with the medium of your choice and roam the streets as a zombie.
If you don't have anything recyclable in your closet, it might be worth checking out second-hand shops or online portals for used costumes. These were probably not produced sustainably, but at least they don't end up in the garbage after just one season.
Make-up without fear
So shortly before Halloween you have probably already seen special make-up sets in some shops. Have you looked at what's in there? Maybe it's better that way, because you may never get rid of this shock. In most of these make-up sets, which are advertised primarily for children, there are many harmful substances. Half of the products tested by Ökotest scored "unsatisfactory".
It is therefore better to use organic make-up. Unfortunately, this is still in short supply. A possible alternative would be to plunder mum's natural cosmetics make-up. Of course at your own risk! Another alternative is to do the make-up yourself. With baby cream as a base, it's easy. Starch is added for white make-up, food coloring and activated charcoal for colored make-up result in an eerily dark black. You can find detailed instructions on how to make make-up for Halloween and other fun celebrations here: Utopia - make your own face paint .
Sweet and sour foray
While some are only concerned with the scary factor, others go hunting for prey. They roam the streets in droves in the dark and shout their slogans: "Trick or treat!". Today's environmentally conscious zombie, however, no longer simply collects something in any plastic bag Unnecessary plastic You may be undead, but you're not dead on your head.
In order to meet these standards, you don't necessarily have to spend all your money on sustainable, fairly produced chocolate (even if we think that's very commendable). An original and sustainable alternative to the large amounts of candy traditionally handed out on Halloween are mini citrus pumpkins. All you need are tangerines or oranges and a black or white permanent marker. You paint different faces and grimaces on the citrus fruits and the easy and fierce-looking mini pumpkins are ready.
If you like to bake, you can of course also bake biscuits in different shapes and decorate them like monsters. So that not every little monster has to rummage around in the biscuit tin with his fingers on Halloween and everyone gets the same number of biscuits, you can pack them in bread bags that you have previously decorated with potato stamps, for example.
Do you remember toilet paper roll monsters that we suggested as scary decorations? These can also be used to give away lots of different little sweets. Simply press in the open sides and the creative upcycling-style packaging is complete.
As you can see, Halloween can also be made eerily beautiful without scary environmental sins. Anyway, we wish you a spooky great All Hallows' Eve!
