Inside the Trend of Extreme Embalming

Death did not stop New Orleans socialite Mickey Easterling from throwing a lavish party with wine, jazz, and a flamboyant outfit. Before she died, Easterling told her daughter that she wanted her memorial to be one last soiree. The funeral home director Patrick Schoen had Easterling ‘extreme embalmed’ and staged her on a bench where it appeared that she had just fallen after the party.

Schoen commented afterwards that “it was a very nice party.” During the funeral-turned-party, “she had a little bucket next to her with the champagne bottle in it, and a pink boa on her. Her hairdresser came and did her hair. She was in all her designer clothes.”

The practice of extreme embalming appears to have started in Puerto Rico in 2014, and many families who opt for these nontraditional funerals choose to stage their loved one in a way that honors how they were known in life. 

See Anneta Konstantinides, Inside ‘Extreme Embalming’ Trend Where are Bodies are Posed to Look Alive, Daily Mail, August 1, 2018.

Special thanks to Molly Neace for bringing this article to my attention.