As I’m sure many can relate, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love nothing more than to dress up in over-the-top outfits and celebrate with friends. However, as a brunette, Halloween feels like a time of endless possibilities, until I start thinking about costumes. My idea of an iconic Halloween costume is something that is familiar, trendy, cute, and most importantly affordable! Growing up, I found that most of my personal favorite popular female characters in pop culture had lighter hair.Â
It was always my dream to dress up as someone iconic like Regina George, a Fembot, or Christina Aguilera circa 2002 until I asked myself if these costumes would look just as fabulous without a big blonde wig. A proper wig can cost an arm and a leg, and the affordable Halloween store wigs are just plain uncomfortable! So I always gave up on those familiar iconic looks, which always led me to struggle to find a costume that felt just as recognizable and cool while also matching my natural dark hair. And sure, I could dress up as Cat Woman or Little Red Riding Hood, but the pickings these days are slim. It is hard to come by a costume that compliments dark hair, hasn’t been recreated a million times, and doesn’t cost a million dollars!Â
After a few trials and errors thanks to trying to ball on budget and TikTok, I realized the secret is to DIY! By embracing my dark hair and my closet, I have been able to come up with some equally quintessential budget-friendly costume ideas and fall back in love with dressing up all over again. With that in mind, here are a few fun costume ideas for my fellow dark-haired queens to use this Halloween season!Â
Betty Boop
The first is Betty Boop. All you need is a cute up-do, red dress, and lipstick, and you are good to go! This one is such a classic and is one of my favorite DIY costumes to date because of the amount of compliments I received!
Bambi
The next fan favorite is Bambi. This one was so underrated and easy. All you would need is a little brown dress, deer ears from Amazon, and a doe-eyed makeup look! This costume was great because it is not as common as all the costumes dark-haired girls are given to choose from at the costume store, and it was super affordable!
Mia from The Princess Diaries
The next that I have seen suggested for my niche film junkie girlies is Mia from The Princess Diaries. You’ll need a white dress, sunglasses, headphones, and a tiara.Â
These ideas are great because they can be pulled off with things most of us probably already have in our closets. DIYing my Halloween costumes to suit my dark features has instilled that feeling of endless possibilities Halloween brings once again. Halloween is supposed to be a fun opportunity to allow your creativity to shine, and we shouldn’t let the color of our hair determine if something is iconic. Anything is what you make it, which is why I felt compelled to share this and some DIY ideas in hopes of keeping Halloween iconic and stress-free as it should be!Â