The Makeup Essentials of Morticians 

Almost everyone Hollis works on gets graced with Glossier. One of her go-to products from the beloved brand is the Best of Beauty Award-winning Boy Brow. In addition to sweeping it through arches, Hollis also fills in beards with the pomade. 

Another Glossier pick in Hollis Funeral Home's prep room: Lash Slick. "I like the brush because it really separates the lashes," Hollis says. 

Typical makeup products, like the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r Hydrating Longwear Foundation, are formulated to respond to the warmth of your skin, says Miranda Mythen, who works at a funeral home in Jacksonville, Florida. "They are also made for skin that produces oil and that is exposed to different elements throughout the day," she adds. "Unfortunately, you lose that warmth when you die. Because of that, a lot of drugstore foundations or liquid face products won't work well on the deceased. That’s when those specially formulated mortuary makeup products come in handy."

However, many post-mortem cosmetics companies don't produce foundation shades that are deep enough. In fact, when working on someone with a dark complexion, Hollis often grabs this Fenty product from her conventional makeup stash. The foundation just so happens to be formulated for dry skin — even though this is not quite the parched skin Rihanna had in mind. 

Another way to keep skin hydrated comes in the form of Nyx Professional Makeup Dewy Finish Setting Spray. Taylor spritzes it on before viewings not only for this reason but also to lock her makeup artistry in place. "You never know if a loved one of the deceased is going to give them one last kiss or the brush of the hair goodbye," she explains. 

"Every embalmed person gets a little bit of this gold highlighter," Hollis declares. Usually, she dusts the Laura Geller Baked Gelato Swirl Illuminator in Gilded Honey onto the center of their eyelids, along the bridge of their nose, and the highest parts of their cheekbones. "It just adds warmth and dimension," she adds. 

Eyebrow pencils, particularly the Mirabella Beauty The Brow Pencil, are another essential in Hollis' kit. Often, she combines three different shades to amp up brows, beards, and hairlines. 

In extreme cases, Taylor pulls out her Temptu Air, a cordless, handheld airbrushing tool. Restorative wax is often sculpted onto the faces of trauma victims to rebuild damaged features and cover up abrasions. The handiwork is often too fragile to layer foundation on top of with a brush, so Taylor mists on airbrush foundation for "touchless perfection," she says. 

The amount of lipstick in the prep room Mythen works out of is innumerable, but you're bound to find a tube or two of the L'Oréal Paris Age Perfect Satin Lipstick — but never liquid lipstick. (It's too drying on the deceased.) The morticians at her funeral home often dab it onto cheeks, chins, noses, and knuckles to bring out the natural color of their face and hands that we, as the living, don't realize make us look alive. 

"Everyone has different undertones and finding a shade of blush that will warm them up while also appearing natural is difficult," Mythen notes. "Since we have so many containers of lipstick, we can look through them and pick out the perfect shade for that individual."

The CC in the IT Cosmetics CC+ Cream stands for color-correcting, which just so happens to be a frequently-practiced part of a mortician's trade, Mythen says. Trauma can also create discoloration, and a color-correcting foundation is a key to neutralizing it. 

When doing makeup on the deceased, Mythen puts most of her focus on recreating shapes and illusions with makeup. Frequently, she does so by overlining the lips or reshaping their cupid's bow with lip liner, like the Thrive Causemetics Lip Filler Long-Wearing + Plumping Lip Liner, to give them a more life-like appearance before the coffin is closed. "I feel like an artist every time I get to do makeup at work," she adds.