Mrs. Anna was 15 when she started working in a funeral home. It’s a family business. Her specialty is thanatocosmetology, which consists in preparing the body of the deceased until the last farewell. It’s about dressing, brushing and makeup. What does her job look like?
- Tanatokosmetolożka turns on the music, prepares cosmetics and accessories and goes to work
- While putting on makeup and brushing a deceased person, he does not stop talking to him
- Below we publish an excerpt from the book – a conversation between Małgorzata Węglarz and a Thanatologist
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Małgorzata Węglarz: I understand that you have not dealt with thanatocosmetology from the very beginning? So how do you call your profession today?
Anna Łozińska, thanatocosmetologist and funeral director: This is quite a difficult question. When someone asks me what I do professionally, the most common answer is that I am a thanatocosmetologist, because everyone knows what my place is in the office; I am a co-owner of the company. The question about what I do specifically is most often asked when someone notices a certificate hanging behind my desk. Then another one goes: “Are you actually doing all these activities related to a dead person?” This is often surprising. In fact, people are not interested in what my work looks like when I plan a burial with my family, but rather want to know what activities I do as a thanatokosmetologist.
What’s the reaction?
Amazement. They ask if it’s actually true, and then there is a silence. Further downhill: how do I deal with it? What is my approach to the human body? I answer that I approach them as if I were approaching a living person. Like a doctor to his patient. I know this person is dead, but I want the last goodbye to be easier for the family. I have never had a problem dealing with a deceased person. Even when I was fifteen. I was not repelled, on the contrary, since I was a child I was interested in life after death, how it works, e.g. decay. I know that it is a bit early for a child, but my interests were in this direction. Besides, when it comes to interests, you understand me! At the moment, in our plant, I deal with the most difficult cases, because I had to focus on the organizational side of the business. But when the worst case occurs, a deceased requiring more work and more makeup, that’s when I step into action.
What do you mean by “worst case”?
Mostly it is an advanced decay body. We often say that these are “prosecution bodies” because we have been working with the prosecution service for twelve years. Some bodies are in good condition, but this is rather rare. And these are the bodies I mean, the ones that require more maintenance, care and cover-up so that the family can say goodbye after all. Obviously, embalming should have been carried out beforehand, but in our West Pomeranian Voivodeship it is rarely carried out, it seems to me that it is a matter of lack of time and resources on the part of the client. Therefore, my work is the maximum that is possible without embalming, as this process allows the body to be cleaner. The tanatokosmetologist deals more with reconstruction and with things related to posthumous cosmetics. (…)
The rest of the text is below the video.
Do clients want to know what will happen to their deceased loved ones or prefer to just pay and walk away?
Most often, the person commissioning us to organize a funeral first tells me where the deceased is and asks only if we will collect the body. Here the bone-breaking myth sometimes comes up and some people want to be dressed, which of course I allow, it is still an important part of the funeral ritual and I strongly encourage you to participate in it. If the client says: “I want to dress myself”, no problem, we make the chapel available. But most often our clients trust us and simply commission the service. If a question arises, it is usually about clothes, appearance, e.g. a request that mum should have hair combed to the side or be painted in a specific way, sometimes the family brings their cosmetics. Which is also good, because I don’t know this person, I don’t know how he painted himself, and I’d rather reflect what he was like when he was alive. But until the end, people don’t really want to know. About ninety-eight percent don’t want to know and ask nothing. These two percent are customers who want to know literally everything.
I was going to ask if there were any unrealistic wishes, but now I find it wiser to ask if the clients even know what they might be asking of the funeral director?
I guess you have to start with the fact that people hardly ever have any idea of how it all works. For example the appearance of a deceased person. It often happens that a family wants a loved one to look as if they died a second ago, and it shows a very far-reaching decomposition. Unfortunately, if I do not embalming, the bruises or other remnants of the disease will remain, so I often say that I cannot change it, although I will do my best. But are there unrealistic wishes? I don’t think so. If someone would like a trumpeter or a violinist at a funeral, we can arrange it. However, it seems to me that a lot depends on the funeral district. In our country, half of the burials are cremations. And in other provinces it is almost non-existent. Much also depends on mentality. In our West Pomeranian Voivodeship, I must admit that cremation is very high. Now we have our own crematorium, it will open in six months, so it will be even easier. (…)
What is your average working day like? I mean the work of a thanatokosmetologist. A body appears and what next?
First, I need to know when to prepare such a person. The gentlemen from the company always report it to me in advance. Then I prepare my cosmetics, because I have mine, and my friends have my own, a straightener, everything is clean. I have my apron. I turn on the music, which is standard for me, and I talk a lot with the deceased person. My gentlemen [other Thanatocosmetologists in the plant – ed. aut.] they always hear me say, “My pretty, raise your hand.” I always talk. I treat this person a little as if they are still alive, with respect and gentleness. Just as a doctor approaches a living person, I approach a dead person. Although I believe that a doctor has a much more difficult task, because I know that I will not hurt anyone anymore. All I can do is improve my appearance and prepare for a dignified body display. Of course, first you have to wash and clean the deceased. And since I am a small piece, it is often difficult for me to operate on such dead people alone. But times have changed, I have strong masters who do it, and I come to the very end. Make-up, reconstructions, often when my gentlemen have already done some work.
Have you ever prepared a loved one for burial?
Not very close. A friend, yes, but not a very close friend. I could not do it.
Excerpt from the book Everything You Need to Know Before You Die. Secrets of the funeral industry »Małgorzata Węglarz (MUZA SA Publishing House).
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