Pumpkin Spice Girl Latte Costume

In my annual quest to construct a fun, original and punny Halloween costume, I thought long and hard about what to do for this year's shindig that was worthy of some DIY magic. In years past I've often gravitated towards contemporary pop culture ideas such as Post-It Malone and Carole Baskin-Robbins, and there was certainly a lot of newsworthy material from 2024 (e.g. The Olympics, the election, the Solar Eclipse, Moo Deng, etc.) so that's where my process started.

As fun as it would've been to craft a hippopotamus from scratch, my brainstorming led me on a wild goose chase all the way to Pumpkin Spice Lattes - a magical fall staple that reappears every September and takes the coffee world by storm. I had never drank one of these things and I typically avoid coffee altogether, but it was hard to avoid hearing about them on social media and Starbucks marketing campaigns. A PSL by itself wouldn't really be a noteworthy or unique costume of course, so I needed to pair or mash it up with something else to really complete the idea. And that's when it hit me that combining it with a spice girl from the famous 90's band would actually be kinda cool.

The obvious pairing here from the group of 5 is Ginger Spice since an actual PSL has ginger in it, and with that in hand, I was off to the races. I did some research on some of Geri Halliwell's most prominent looks and discovered that her Union Jack dress was the most iconic of them all, so that was an easy decision. Then I paired it with some red Go-Go boots, got a heavy makeup job done, and turned my attention towards the Coffee Cup, where there was a lot more room for creativity. I hacked away at a garbage can to make it wearable, gave it some spray foam and glitter to simulate whipped cream and powder, photoshopped the labels to make it a truly unique "PSGL" and hooked on some leather straps so that I could wear it around town.

There were a lot of firsts for me in this one, including wearing a dress/bra, figuring out how to maneuver contact lenses, using spray foam in any capacity, shaving my armpits, and adjusting to go-go boots, but all in all it was a great experience. As usual I wore it to the NYC Village Halloween Parade for a night full of fun and adventure and had many pictures taken, and I'm glad that I went with this 90's throwback mashup!

Full video here if anyone is seeing all the steps in action!

For this project you'll need:

Starbucks Cup:

1. 44-Gallon White, Plastic Garbage Can (actual one here)
2. 12" Hacksaw (actual one here)
3. 2 cans of Spray Foam (actual one here)
4. Brown Glitter
5. Two 36" Rubber S-hook straps (actual ones here)
6. 2 Small Tubes of Acrylic Paint (1 White and 1 Dark Blue)
7. A 24" x 24" Piece of Cardboard
8. A Paintbrush
9. An X-acto Knife
10. A cutting mat like this to protect surfaces from an Xacto knife
11. Some Photoshopping skills
12. Some Packaging Tape (to tape the posters)
13. A Pair of Scissors
14. Rubber Cement (actual one here)
15. Safety Goggles
16. Heavy Duty Work Gloves
17. Latex Gloves
18. A pencil for tracing
19. Some duct tape (to tape the Bluetooth speaker)
20. Soft shoulder pads (optional)
21. Bluetooth Speaker (optional)

Ginger Spice (Geri Halliwell):

1. Union Jack Dress
2. Bra
3. Blue Contact Lenses (if you don't have blue eyes)
4. Ginger-colored Wig (actual one here)
5. Microphone
6. Red Go-Go Boots (or similar colored boots. Actual one here)
7. Backup flat boots if you're going to be walking a lot (I used these)
8. Women's Makeup
9. Red lipstick
10. Gloss
11. Blush, Mascara and other makeup for contouring (I got this done at Nordstrom but you can totally DIY it if you know what you're doing)
12. A razor and shaving cream if you need to shave any facial hair, arm hair or armpit hair!

If you know Starbucks cups - and most of you do - then you know that side handles are obviously not a design spec on them. If you can find a 44-gallon garbage can that does not have handles then you'll save a bit of work here, but I scoured the internet far and wide and came up empty. (I did however manage to find a white can that lacked a deep horizontal ridge at the top, so that was a nice win for me here). This is the second time that I've had to "hack" away at a tub like this for a costume, so I knew that my 12" high-tension Stanley hacksaw was more than capable of getting the job done.

To slice the handles off I held the hacksaw firmly and made up-and-down vertical motions as the saw gradually cut through the plastic, as seen in the first picture above. It's very important here to saw in a straight line horizontally so that you get a clean cut on the surface, because if you don't then your can could potentially have a few uneven bumps that you'll need to fix later. Make sure to do this slowly and correctly because you'll want to get it right, and you certainly don't want to saw any of your fingers in the process!

Once I sliced the handles off I then needed to cut a hole in the bottom of the can (2nd picture) so that I could stand in this and wear it as a prop. Fortunately this can had a perfect benchmark line around the bottom that I could saw along, so I followed it like a can opener and went clockwise around the circumference a few inches at a time. The end result is in the third picture above.

Again - with the bottom of the can - be slow and precise! This will be very visible to anyone who sees this and you don't want to lose the illusion of a coffee cup due to uneven edges.

In order to have "whipped cream" sitting on top of our coffee cup, we'll need to establish a base there for it to lay on. I chose cardboard for this given its durability and ease of cutting.

In order to get a nice circular piece on top of the cup, we'll need to do the following:

1. Make a Stencil

This step is pretty simple and requires a 24" x 24" piece of cardboard (or bigger). Lay the cardboard flat on the ground and then turn your garbage can upside down on top of it, so that it is flush with the cardboard surface (picture 1 above). Once that's in place, you'll just need to trace the outer rim of the can to get a complete circle on the cardboard.

2. Cut the Circle Outline With an Xacto Knife

Once you have your circle stenciled, place a cutting mat under the cardboard and then slowly cut along the circumference with an Xacto knife. Our goal is to separate the circle completely from the rest of the cardboard so that we can layer it on top of the can, and you'll want to go slowly to ensure a good cut.

3. Glue the Cardboard Circle to the top of the Can

With your cardboard circle intact, we now need to ensure that it sticks to the top of the garbage can! Turn your can right side up and then put on a pair of Latex gloves. We're going to be working with Rubber Cement glue in this instance and that is something that you do not want to get on your skin. Apply a generous amount of Rubber Cement to the entire outside rim of the can, and also to the outer rim of your cardboard, so that when you press them together the bond is nice and strong. Press them together for a few minutes or longer if needed (picture 7 above), and feel free to weigh it down with books or other heavy materials.

Note that you can use double-sided shipping tape instead of glue for this step if desired (or even both), but just be careful about the tape being visible to the naked eye.

NOTE: Spray Foam, like Rubber Cement, is not something that you ever want on your skin or in your eyes. So heavy duty work gloves and goggles are strongly advised for this step.

One of the defining features of a PSL is the whipped cream and brown, pumpkin powder at the very top of it, so I knew that I had to recreate this as best I could. At first I was considering using shaving cream since it was readily available, safe, and easy, but I doubted its long-term viability across multiple hours. Modeling clay was another possibility, but that would've taken a while to mold for this. The best middle ground - which ended up looking pretty good - was spray foam (a.k.a. Expanding Sealant) which is normally used to fill cracks in homes and apartments. I bought a random one on Amazon which had good reviews and prayed for the best, thinking that worst case my cardboard is ruined and I need to do Step 2 again.

Here are the steps for the whipped cream/powder:

1. Gear Up

That means goggles, gloves and a well-ventilated room. You can see in the pictures above that I used my bathtub because it's right next to a window. The bottle makes it very clear that all of this is necessary, so please take it seriously!

2. Prep the Bottle

First you need to shake the bottle vigorously for a good 30 seconds, and then you need to connect the nozzle on top so that it's able to spray out the foam. Be very careful since it's very easy to do some unintended triggering!

3. Apply the Foam

While holding the bottle upside down, gently pull the trigger and spray some foam top to bottom and back up again in a slow clockwise motion, making sure to get good coverage on your cardboard. As you can see from Picture 3 above, I was leaving a large chunk uncovered in the center since I knew I'd be cutting that out later to stand in this, so feel free to do the same.

4. Sprinkle on Some Brown Glitter

The ideal time to apply the glitter is within minutes after you spray the foam, because it'll be nice and wet and the glitter will stick to it nicely. Gently sprinkle some on so that it mimics a pumpkin powder and re-apply as needed, using your best judgement.

5. Wait it out!

It typically takes spray foam 4 to 8 hours to completely expand and set, so now you'll just need to give it some time. Once the foam is dry it's completely harmless and safe to touch, so you may want to remove some excess with an Xacto knife if there's too much in any particular area.

You can also add some more later if you missed a spot or two, even if it touches some previously applied (and dried) foam.

I'm very glad that I found this stuff because it looks a LOT like whipped cream when it dries and it's very easy to apply. It's also pretty cheap and sold on Amazon and every Hardware Store you can think of, so I'll likely use it again for future costumes.

Now that we've got the top of the cup nearly done, we need to be able to step into it! Fortunately this won't be too difficult since it's fairly easy to cut cardboard and dried foam spray.

With an Xacto knife, carefully cut out the remaining, unsprayed portion of the cardboard in the middle of your cup (pictures 1-3 above). If you underestimated how big this hole actually needs to be like I did, fear not, because we can keep expanding the size of the hole from the center until you're able to step in it.

The key thing here is to keep the center in an oval or circular shape to the best of your ability. Nobody is going to see your costume from a top-down view, but they will see most of the whipped cream on the side and you'll want that to look consistent all the way around.

To test that the hole is big enough, I stepped into the cup with one leg first, held onto a wall for balance, and then stepped in with the other leg. You can also put this on by draping it over your torso from the top (which I tried as well), but this can is fairly heavy and it is a little more difficult to do that unless you have someone helping you.

If you'll be wearing this for a few hours you'll want to make sure this is comfortable, so definitely make sure that this hole is big enough!

Disclaimer: This part does require some Photoshop knowledge, but you can alternatively paint/draw this on as well if desired.

With our cup nearly complete, the last step is to customize the labels and really make it stand out as a "PSGL" rather than just an ordinary PSL. Given the size of the cup, which I measured at 70" around its center, I sized these labels at 24" high and 36" wide so that they would take up 24" x 72" and slightly overlap a bit. It is crucial that you set the same sizing in Photoshop so that the labels print clearly without any blurring, because really, who wants to see that?

Here's what we need for both sides:

Front Side (the logo):

The front of a Starbucks cup only features their traditional logo, and because there isn't much else going on there I made an executive decision to keep it as is. This is about as famous a logo as you'll find out there, and keeping it consistent will make it instantly recognizable to anyone who sees this. The only drawback with this approach, I later discovered, is that people will probably need to see the back of the cup to figure out the whole idea of the costume.

It's certainly not hard to find this logo on the Internet - especially a high resolution version of it - so find the best one that you can and center it in the middle of your image with some horizontal and vertical guides (picture 5 above).

Back Side (specs, sticker w/name, warning at bottom):

The back of a SBUX cup has a lot more material to work with so that's really where I had some fun. I replaced the 6 drink spec boxes with the names of all the Spice Girls and put a big "X" in Ginger's box to indicate that this was her, in addition to writing "PSGL" in the drink box. Then I changed "That First Sip Feeling" to "That Girl Power Feeling" since Girl Power was a big staple of the Spice Girls in the 90's, and I tweaked the subtext to be "Let us add a little spice to your day."

At the bottom of a SBUX cup there's a warning about how hot it is and which materials are used, so I switched this to, "Careful, the music you're about to enjoy is extremely catchy. Do not hum out loud during a meeting. This cup is made with 10% recycled fiber and 90% British flair." And lastly, I had some fun with the printout sticker by putting Geri's name on there (Geri H.), Tl Psgl and "Zigazig ah" from their hit song "Wannabe".

Overall it came out very good!

Once your labels are done, you'll want to print them on 24" x 36" inch matte paper, which is important here since Starbucks cups are paper-like with zero shine. (The alternative is a glossy print and that won't match the look and feel as well).

I figured this step would be one of the easiest since the previous steps are all more labor intense, but boy was I in for a surprise! That's because this can (and an actual BUX cup) have a curved surface that isn't perpendicular to the ground, meaning that simply taping on two posters and straightening them with a level at the top would guarantee a non-level bottom. Or in other words, this isn't a wall in a home with a flat surface so we can't take eye-balling for granted here like we can in that situation.

There were a couple of things I could've done to alleviate this - including cutting the posters in a shape of a trapezoid to offset the surface differential, but I instead opted to have some overlap where the sticker printout was (picture 5 above) since a true sticker would do that anyway.

For taping I used double-sided heavy shipping tape, which stuck nicely to the garbage can and the posters and held all night. You can probably get away with scotch tape for this since the two surfaces are both receptive to tape in general, but I would go with the former just to be safe. As always, make sure that the tape is in the right spot because you certainly don't want to rip your posters after all that hard work!

One other thing that I should mention here is that you could opt to put the Starbucks logo in the back and wear the fun specs in the front if you'd like, but I chose to go with the traditional view. Even if you're not sure which option you want, you can always switch this up dynamically since the costume can be rotated and worn the other way.

In order to help camouflage the hook straps that will be holding the garbage can up via our shoulders, I thought it would be worthwhile to paint the ends white (where they'd be next to the white can) and the straps blue since they'll be on top of Geri's dark blue Union Jack dress. This step is optional but I'm always of the impression that the more illusion there is for a costume, the better!

For the hooks I used acrylic white paint, a thin paintbrush and small, consistent strokes to cover the metal entirely. When the first coat dried I applied a second one with the same brush and paint, and that looked sufficient.

I wasn't sure how well the blue paint would stick to leather but I was pleasantly surprised. As you can see in picture 2 I used a much thicker brush for this since there was more ground to cover, and it actually looked pretty good once it dried.

I had the straps draped over a shower rod while doing this in order to paint these effectively, so you may want to do the same.

And with that...our Starbucks PSGL cup is done! Now we need to transform into Ginger Spice to complete the getup.

Note: If this doesn't apply to you, feel free to skip this step!

Normally I have a fair amount of facial hair, arm hair and armpit hair, and Ginger Spice obviously didn't, so all of those had to go for this. (It's also impossible to apply makeup with facial hair of course, so there's that).

I started with my face, where I first trimmed the hair with a Philips Norelco beard trimmer and then used shaving cream and razor the rest of the way. The result was relatively smooth without any cuts.

For my arms I used the same Norelco trimmer and applied smooth strokes to remove as much hair as I could. It didn't get 100% of the hair off so I went over it with a razor like I did with my face, and unfortunately I sustained a few gnarly cuts on my knuckles. Moral of the story - if you're shaving your hands, be very careful!

The armpit hair was relatively easy to shave with the same trimmer, shaving cream and razor combo. This was a first for me since I had never shaved this area before, and ultimately the process went smoothly.

Obviously if you already have blue eyes, you can skip this step. Or you can also just go with whatever eye color you have already too since this is a minor tweak. In my case, I had never worn contact lenses in my life before this so I figured hey, why not give it a go! Geri Halliwell has a light blue eye color and it would look a little more realistic than my brown ones so I went for it.

My first step here was to see an optometrist to make sure that I had the right sizing because I didn't want to take any chances (especially since this was my first foray with lenses). I had a full retinal scan done and also an eye test to confirm that I needed 0.0 correction, and thankfully the doctor had a blue sample pair in his office so I didn't even need to buy any.

Getting these on and off was certainly a task, but I got the hang of it after a few times! And adjusting to them was a cinch. If you're going to go this route, make sure you see an optometrist because it's the safer option and you'll also get a very useful training session on how to operate these. There are also many online tutorials if you need some extra help with this of course. The biggest key - which the doctor reiterated to me several times - is to go as slowly as you need to in order to get these in effectively.

Now that our face is clean shaven and the contacts are in, it's time to get some makeup done!

Geri had a classic 90's look here and it contains some of the following:

1. Eyeshadow
2. Mascara
3. Glossy pink lipstick
4. Some blush
5. Powder for a lighter, pale look, and
6. Some eyebrow coloring to make mine look thinner (a tall order)

I wanted to mimic this look as much as I possibly could, and with my totally different facial shape than Geri's, this is about as good as it could've been I think. I had 2 different jobs applied by 2 different artists for this (pictures 4 and 5) for about an hour each, and I have to give big kudos to Maria at Nordstrom for doing my costume makeup for the second year in a row because she is very good!

I would probably never do my own makeup just because I don't have the patience or skillset for it, but if you want to then this reference video looks pretty good!

With the makeup complete, now we need to dress up like Geri would!

To finish the Ginger Spice look, I wore the following:

Union Jack Dress

A quick Google search shows that this is Geri's most iconic outfit, and the dress was readily available online so it was the first thing I bought for this costume! Make sure it's long enough though, because when she wore it it was short as you could possibly imagine, and you probably don't want that.

Just for transparency's sake, I also paired this with a bra and some bra cups to get some lift in that area. Another first for me, I should add.

Ginger Colored Wig

As her name suggests, Geri's hair is ginger colored, so if you're brunette like me (or blonde) then you'll either need to get a wig or color your hair altogether. She also experimented with blonde highlights, so you can do the same if you'd like.

Go-Go Boots

When Geri wore the Union Jack dress she often paired it with red Go-Go boots, so I did the same. However, I did need to change to flat boots for walking around a lot so I would suggest having a backup pair of your own.

Microphone

She's a singer after all isn't she?!? Any mic will do, but I'd stick to a basic one that isn't too heavy so that you can carry it around with ease.

Since I wanted to maximize the fun in this costume, I had an interesting thought to tape a Bluetooth speaker to the inside of my tub (which nobody would see) and then blast Spice Girls tunes from it all night long. And that's exactly what I did!

The speaker can face either direction for this - either facing forward like you or facing against you - but I went with the first option. I also used several pieces of clear shipping tape to ensure that it would stay in place all night, and thankfully that wasn't a problem.

If you are going to do this, make sure to periodically shut your speaker off to conserve its battery. I got a few hours worth of tunes in by the end of the night, but my speaker eventually died and I wish I had saved it for the entire night.

Now that you look like Ginger Spice herself and have all the pieces in place, the costume is all set and we need to wear the can! There are certainly multiple ways to do this, but I used two rubber S-Hook straps from Home Depot that could be hooked under the rims of both sides of the can and looped above my shoulders (almost like suspenders, which you can see above). This is definitely easier to set up with two people, but since I had to do this myself a few times I taught myself a neat hack. First I carefully stepped into the can one foot at a time, always making sure that I had something to lean on nearby for support. Then I took one strap and hooked from the back to the front on the right side of the can, but without having it rest on top of my shoulder yet. Then I lifted the can about a foot in the air and slid my shoulder underneath the newly formed strap connection so that I could suspend the can and work on the other side. This made it relatively easy to connect the other strap one hook at a time on the left side.

Takes a little getting used to, but it's very helpful if you're ever in a pinch and don't want to keep asking other people to hold the can for you.

Note: To avoid having the rubber from the straps dig into your skin, I would advise using some sort of shoulder pad for this (a thin one that can fit under a dress strap). I didn't do that for this costume and my shoulders weren't very happy with me at the end of the night, but you should!

And that's it!!! Now it's time to go get your Girl Power on and Zigazig-ah your way to Pumpkin Spice Girl Latte stardom!

Enjoy!