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For those new to this website:

Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic). Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

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Originally Published: October 29, 2019

Halloween is my favorite holiday!

I have been passionate about dressing up and designing costumes my entire life. In junior high and high school, I would often win costume contests (around Halloween) for my homemade costumes — as well as other similar contests (like hat day!).

When I was in college (17-18-19 years old), I worked for the New York University Tisch School of the Arts costume design shop for a brief stint as my work study (to help pay for my college tuition). During that time (1987/ 1988/ 1989) I helped design and build costumes for school shows (and professional off-broadway shows, too). In addition to learning my way around a sewing machine (and how to hand-hem delicate silk skirts and take in center-back-seams on vintage 1940s-era men’s slacks!), as part of my job I got to go to all of the major New York City theatrical costume shops looking for pieces to be used as costumes for plays I was working on. (This meant lots of digging around in the NYC vintage costume archives!) I loved it.

Growing up in New England, Halloween was pretty much always my absolute favorite holiday. I don’t know if my passion for costume design was inspired by my love of Halloween or vice versa — but designing costumes for (and with) my kids (over the past 23 years) has always been one of my absolute favorite things to do. 

In recent years I have been sharing my family’s Halloween photos on Facebook, but I thought it would be fun to share a few of them here too (as Facebook sends me reminders of some of my more popular photos over time — since I joined it 10 years ago, c. 2009!)

Below are two photos from Halloween 2013. They are not any testament to my costume design skills but they are fun nonetheless. The first is my son Charlie. This was six years ago so that means he was 5 years old in this picture (he is 11 today). At the time he described his self-assembled costume (using findings from our costume box which we always keep available and full of fun things in the playroom) as follows: “I’m knight-skeleton-a superman-cowboy!”

And then that year we went to a Halloween party — one of the last I have gone to in a long time because my kids’ disabilities make it hard for me to go to parties. I decided to dress up as a “sexy sheriff”… And well — since I am a lot older and worn now — while this is no great costume (photo below), this simple picture brings back happy memories of “before” (before my life took wild turns into the unknown realm of being politically persecuted for my work trying to protect children from being exposed to Lead in their homes and environment!). And since I am 49 years old today (2019, the day I am publishing this), this means I was a young’un of just 43 in this photo! OMG — to go back in time right about now… #sigh! (Please continue reading below the photo.)

#LeadSafeMama’s tips for Lead-safe Halloween costumes & parties

As a family, we have always had a few points we focus on for Halloween costumes and parties that actually fall within the realm of being “Lead-safe tips” (and general safety tips) for celebrating the holiday — and here they are:

1. We make our own costumes. Always … every year. (This is a great educational opportunity for kiddos as they need to research their choices to make them as accurate and appropriate as possible.)
2. We avoid most store-bought rubber masks (although I must admit that a few have crept into our home over the years). (You can see the XRF test results for those here.)
3. We avoid all face paint and makeup (my kids have just had too many reactions to make that something worth experimenting with). Of course, there have been exceptions over the years but they are few and far between. (Here’s a Lead-free face paint I have tested, link.)
4. We focus on the clothing making the costume (and looking for/ making/ building/ finding vintage or other clothing items to help pull together a look!).
5. We do avoid vintage hats (see link here) and vintage costume jewelry (see link here) — because of Lead and Mercury concerns.
6. As a result of point #4 above my sons have had to learn to SEW and KNIT to make their costumes — which has been an amazing learning opportunity for them (and an exercise in self-sufficiency!).
7. We use cardboard, cloth, ribbon, string, paint, paper mâché, balloons, wood, and other findings (recycling and reusing as much as possible to make costumes).
8. An important point I have taught my boys: If you are going to make something, make it right — make it last … make it using real techniques so it can be used over and over again (don’t just think of it as a Halloween costume!). To this point: I still have the red and black satin vampire cloak I made for my boyfriend to wear in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in 1987 (and my kids wear it for dress up all the time!). Plus, here’s a little video of my son working on knitting his Dr. Who scarf (we researched the colors, style, and length!):
    

9. Less is more: It’s super important you can walk, sit, and otherwise move around in your costume (and also that you are not cold, wet, or uncomfortable!).
10. Bring a flashlight and use a pillowcase (not the good organic ones though!) to collect your candy!
11. Most importantly: My kids start planning and working on their costumes a year in advance (yes — it’s a thing — every day is Halloween in our house! Lol!).
12. We avoid store-bought decorations and instead, I encourage the kids to make ghosts and skeletons and other things out of construction paper and other art supplies and we buy ALL THE PUMPKINS (as many as we can afford) to decorate our house and yard.
13. Avoid Halloween twinkly lights (they either are high in Antimony or high in Lead and are just not worth the compromise — in terms of the environmental impact).
14. If we are having a party we also buy hay bales or straw bales from the local farm store to decorate the yard (and these help to keep Lead dust down in areas where we have bare soil).
15. Halloween Party Pro-Tip: If you want it to smell like Halloween in the house, simmer organic apple juice with organic cloves, organic nutmeg, and organic cinnamon all day! (… Add water so it doesn’t boil down to nothing.)

I’m planning on publishing more photos and random stories from my life on the website, too — peppered in among the pieces about Lead — because I want this site to be a glimpse at my life (and my work) for my kids one day (after I am gone — in 25 or 50 years or whenever that happens!). I have to look into how to pay a host to host your website forever once you die! There must be a service that offers that (if you know of something like that, please let me know).

Happy Halloween! Have a great time celebrating with your family.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama