When I started reporting a story for Glamour about the aesthetics of dying, I hopped over to my local Sephora to interview people about the topic. I figured that people who care about their looks in life would probably care about it in death.
I asked several makeup artists and patrons: “Have you thought about your ‘funeral look’? Like, how you’ll do your makeup when you’re dead?” They all met me with blank stares — and not because of my nosy question. They had never thought about it. They didn’t realize it was something they could think about.
Many of the death professionals I interviewed also hadn’t planned their funeral looks. Liliane Bougie has been doing funeral makeup for 54 years and advertises her services in her Montreal retirement home. She turned 100 this past January, but doesn’t have her own funeral look planned. She wants to be cremated, so it doesn’t matter to her.
It’s not that I’m so obsessed with people wearing neon eyeshadow to their own funeral. But I couldn’t believe how a society fixated on beauty wouldn’t even entertain it — especially for one of the biggest days of your (kind of) life.
I needed to figure out a way to write a story about beauty in death, when most people wouldn’t even discuss death in the first place. Glamour readers certainly wouldn’t expect a feature on death at their virtual doorstep.
My Glamour editor, Ariana Yaptangco, greatly helped me with this. From our first emails about my story, she told me to reference celebrities who have spoken about their own funeral looks.
Ariana sent me a story about a clause in Khloé Kardashian’s will specifying that she must receive a manicure once a week if she falls into a coma, as she wants to look good for her visitors. Ariana later added in another fabulous story about Hollywood stylist, Law Roach, telling Zendaya that she must wear “a sickening black skirt-set” to his funeral.
By showing that celebrities are just like us — they die! — I made death more approachable. It even helped in interviews. When I mentioned Khloé Kardashian’s will clause to a woman in Sephora, she then mused that she, too, would like to get her nails done for her funeral.
That helped me realize that I should write about death through a beauty lens, rather than beauty through a death lens. Beauty is fun, death is not. But beauty in death? That’s intriguing.
I wrote the article like a beauty piece. I discussed how to avoid a cakey look, what eyeshadow to wear on your deathbed, where Black women can find the right hair stylist.
When I describe my piece like that, I sound like a dystopian influencer. But the beauty topics allowed me to begin the discussion around death. Cakey looks stem from outdated notions of funerals, eyeshadow choices convey our personality to grieving loved ones, Black women’s hair stylist options address a lack of cultural training for morticians. I started with the superficial so that I could dive deep into death — and what it says about our lives.
Mainstream audiences may find it jarring to read about death. Introducing the topic in a roundabout way allows them to warm up to it, so that they can engage in honest and open dialogues about death and dying.
BIO
Sabina Wex is a writer in Toronto. She has written about death and dying, noise pollution and Gilmore Girls. Her work has appeared in Glamour, CBC, Business Insider and more.
Website: https://www.sabinawex.com/
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