9 best kids’ Halloween costumes that look spooktacular

This frightfully fabulous outfit is cute and creepy all at the same time. With a tiered frill design printed with images of moons and ravens, it’s a cut above your average black dress and it comes with a waistbelt, for extra detail. There’s also a black wig complete with Wednesday Addams-esque plaited pigtails. For the final flourish, your child can practise perfecting Wednesday’s intense, unblinking stare, ready for trick or treating.

Made from 100 per cent polyester, the outfit feels smooth next to the skin, to limit chafing or rubbing during a long Halloween celebration. However, we suggest adding a black thermal vest or long-sleeve leotard underneath, if this outfit is to be worn outside on 31 October.

Considering a bag of fun-size chocolate bars for trick-or-treaters costs around £5, a Halloween costume that’s just £7 is an absolute bargain. Especially as it includes a full top-to-toe outfit and a terrifying mask. The eerily detailed bone design is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine. Picture this: the night is dark, a ghostly fog rolls in, and then your little one appears in a bony getup that looks like they’ve just stepped out of an X-ray machine.

The costume is available in multiple sizes, from ages three to 14, and you could have some fun getting siblings to twin for a whole brood of skeletons. In fact, you could pick up three of these bargain outfits for the same price as one average Halloween costume.

This shark cape is a great option for a youngster who likes to swim against the tide. In a sea of boring costumes, this one has some serious bite, with its hood that looks like your child’s head is in the grip of a shark’s jaws. The lovely shimmery fabric is thick and high quality and it’s a very practical choice for Halloween. Your little one can wear a thick jumper and jeans underneath to dress appropriately for the weather and then pop the cape over the top for the finishing touch.

Complete with a fishy tail, this outfit looks as good from behind as it does from up front. While it is more expensive than most of the other kids’ costumes we tested, you will get value for wear out of it, as you can use it throughout the year for role play and other fancy dress occasions, such as World Book Day.

Crafted from smooth bamboo and organic cotton, this sweatshirt and jogger set is an excellent choice for tiny tots at Halloween. The soft fabric feels gentle on a baby’s delicate skin, so your child can stay comfy whether they’re out trick or treating, or just playing around the house. With a black cat on a cream background, it’s a subtle nod to the scary season without being OTT, and we think it’s purr-fect for your baby’s first Halloween adventures.

It’s also a sustainable choice. Both bamboo and organic cotton are durable materials, so this set can be passed down to siblings or gifted to friends, to give several babies a great first experience of Halloween. Plus, it’s machine washable.

When it comes to Halloween outfits, some of the synthetic fabrics used can feel uncomfortable for children, which means they’re less likely to want to wear them. For toddlers, who can be particularly fussy, these cotton pyjamas are bound to be a huge hit. Made from soft, breathable fabric, they’re wonderfully cosy for lounging around the house as well as for going out to score sweets from the neighbours.

The top features batwings when the kids open their arms, and our testers loved pretending to fly around. The elastic waistband ensures a comfortable fit, which is ideal for active kids. Plus, the easy-care material means you can keep it frightfully fresh all season long, even if a lot of melted chocolate has dripped down it.

There’s no shortage of witch costumes out there, but not many that are pink with embellished sequins. The boring black witch costume has had an upgrade and the result is a shimmering costume that enables you to spot your little one after dark better than you would if they were in black. Little ones also enjoy wearing colour and one of our testers felt she looked “fancy”, which is a huge compliment. She added that the sequins catch the light “like a cauldron bubbling over”, which is better than we could have described it ourselves. A matching hat completes the look, perfect for brewing up some seriously stylish spells.

Our only concern is the short sleeves will leave arms exposed if your child is going out trick or treating, so, we recommend adding a long-sleeved pink top underneath and some thermal leggings, as it’s not made from the heaviest of fabrics.

We were very impressed by how warm, durable and thick the fabric is on this Tu Clothing dragon outfit. It’s padded to give the illusion of a six-pack, which you may not normally get on dragons, but our testers loved it, as they said it made them feel strong. Coupled with a fearsome mask showing a dragon bearing its teeth, this costume can be summed up in one word: fire. The getup fully transforms a child into a spooky dragon straight out of a storybook... or maybe a nightmare. The finishing touch is detachable wings, so kids can pretend to fly around the streets, burning off all the sweets they blag while trick or treating.

When there’s a sea of black outfits, anyone with glow-in-the-dark detail will get noticed and complimented. Our toddler tester slept in these pyjamas, fully testing the glow, and we can testify that the green skeleton is luminous. With the lights out, these pyjamas lit up the night with a skeleton design that made it look like our little one was in a haunted house.

Glow-in-the-dark detail is a great safety feature on Halloween, enabling parents to spot their terrifying darlings and to make them more visible when they’re crossing roads. Even better news is this costume’s size range goes up to 16 years old.

When it comes to dressing up, not everyone wants to be a witch, ghost or skeleton. This costume is a great alternative option for little ones, as it helps them feel part of the Halloween fun, without leaving them spooked. Plus, it comes with accessories such as a helmet, fire hydrant and working megaphone with sound effects (consider yourself warned – our mini testers adored it but it started to grate on us adults after a while). We predict kids will get a lot of use out of this costume throughout the year, too – from World Book Day to fancy dress birthday parties. Indeed, our mini testers have been getting plenty of use out of the megaphone – we may end up hiding it, to give our ears a break.