‘The last thing we want is somebody who liked a soft pink lipstick to have a bright red’: Dead body aesthetics in South Australian funeral homes

Abstract This paper addresses the aesthetics of bodily preparation of the deceased, pre‐funeral, in Australia. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Adelaide in 2020–2023, we reflect on participants' accounts and behaviours, noting that dead bodies, particularly those under the care of, and prepared by, members of the funeral industry, were conceptually grouped into three distinct categories: the ‘good’, the ‘ too good’, and the ‘bad’. ‘Good’ dead bodies appear peaceful, asleep, and natural; not too alive and not too dead. ‘ Too good’ dead bodies appear too alive, or their causes of death have been erased through reconstruction. Lastly, ‘bad’ dead bodies are either physically in a state of decomposition or disarray, or are judged by mourners, who expect the dead to look as they did in life, yet not look alive. This tension between life and death aesthetics and the way the funeral industry navigates it, is central to this paper.