How to make costumes flame-resistant

With cute trick-or-treaters standing at your door right next to a spooky, lit jack-lantern, this typical Halloween vignette can become disastrous quickly.

Halloween costumes look harmless: a cute devil, a lovely princess, a scary evil eye. However it is the combination of costumes and open flames where the trouble cannot start. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said costumes should be flame resistant.

If a costume is flame resistant, if it comes in contact with fire, but then the fire is removed, the costume should self-extinguish.

Watch the video attached to this story to see what happens when fire is touched to an evil eye skull costume, a devil costume and a princess costume. Two of the three are destroyed in less than a minute.

For children and adults, accessories like a feather boa makes a great Halloween costume, but watch out: The boa burns up in less than 90 seconds. And a hula skirt? Same fiery fate, but in less time.

One of the most popular items for making a homemade costume is using a sheet to make a ghost. But, those 100 percent cotton sheets are one of the most dangerous. Within 45 seconds, a ghost costume will be a sheet of fire instead of a sheet of white.

If you want to reduce the risk of your costume going up in flames, the Washington Hospital Center has a recipe that can make your costume more fire resistant.

Recipe:

• Mix 4 oz. of Boric acid with 9 oz of Borax
  
• Dissolve that mixture in a gallon of warm water
  
• Soak the costume and let it drip dry

As a homeowner, maybe it is a good idea to keep the lit jack-o-lanterns out of the path of trick-or-treaters, or use a flashlight to illuminate the carved pumpkins.