Planning a Funeral for a Loved One Who Wore Makeup: Four Things You Need to Know

If you are planning a funeral for a loved one who always wore makeup, you may want to provide the funeral director with some of your loved one's makeup. Before doing that, however, you may want to understand a bit more about the process. Here's what you need to know:

1. Funeral directors have makeup on hand.

Funeral directors use makeup on all of their deceased clients, regardless of whether or not they wore makeup during their lives. Makeup artists at funeral homes use makeup to cover injuries from accidents and to reinvigorate the look of the deceased person's face.

As a result, they typically have makeup on hand, and you don't need to provide it if you don't want to.

2. Lipstick can help provide your loved one's signature color.

Even though you don't have to bring makeup, you may want to bring a few elements. In particular, if your loved one had a certain shade of lipstick that they used, you should give a tube of it to the funeral director. That will help him or her create your loved one's signature look.

If your loved one had lip liner to match their favourite lipstick, you may want to bring that as well. Unfortunately, the embalming process can make people's lips look thin.

3. Sprays and powders work better than liquids and creams.

Colorful eyeshadow can also help to create your loved one's usual colour pallette, and you may want to bring that to the funeral home as well. However, it's important to note that powder-based eye shadow is the best option. Liquid eye shadows don't work as well on people who have been embalmed.

Similarly, you may want to avoid bringing liquid foundation as it can be hard to apply to embalmed skin, as the skin becomes too dry to work with. Most makeup artists at funeral homes use an airbrush to apply foundation instead, or they use brushes and powder.

4. A photograph of your loved one is essential.

If you want your loved one to look as they did in life, you need to provide the funeral director with a photograph. Ideally, you want a focused picture that clearly shows your loved one's face, and if possible, you want a relatively recent picture. Arguably, this picture can be even more important than the makeup you provide -- it visually guides the makeup artist through the process.

For more information, talk with funeral directors at local homes, such as Tony Hollands Funerals.