While beauticians prep finicky prom queens, mortuary beauticians tend to the grooming and cleaning tasks of less animated clients. It’s facials versus facial fluids and bikini waxes versus rigor mortis.
Echo asked aesthetician Nikki Cox of Chicago’s American Laser Centers and mortuary beautician Carrie Mowen of Michigan’s Mowen Funeral Home to explain the essentials of styling debutantes and the deceased.

Mortuary Beautician
Training: Growing up in a family business, Mowen watched her father embalm bodies and her mother prepare them for viewing.
Products: Heavy chemical-based makeup, Kelmetics Creams.
Biggest challenge: Body fluids leaking out of the nose, eyes and mouth after a sloppily stapled post-autopsy.
Difficulties: Styling hair while the client is lying down and the follicles are starting to fall out.
Weirdest request: A widower who brought in his wedding photos from the 1950s to help with the styling. “It was kind of cute, because to him, I’m sure that is how he saw her every day for the past fifty or more years.”
Grossest: Rigor mortis, which can cause the body to twitch on the table.
Perks: “Helping people in a time of need, especially families without insurance who have no means of paying for services otherwise. We’re not out to make a buck, we’re out to help.”

Aesthetician Beautician
Training: Aveda Institute’s six-month aesthetician program.
Products: Cream cleanser for dry skin or gel cleanser for oily skin. Then aromatic hot towels followed by foundation, eye shadow, mascara and other makeup.
Biggest challenge: Assessing different skin types and finding the right products for each person.
Difficulties: Women who don’t listen to professional advice about the too-high arch of their eyebrows.
Weirdest request: A woman who tried to convince her to “keep waxing” beyond Aveda’s boundaries.
Grossest: Occasionally dealing with lack of personal hygiene.
Perks: “Getting to work with happy customers and make them feel better about their day.”