I recently heard that a woman had died. My first thought was how young she was. My second was her child. And then funeral service did what funeral service has done to my brain: I pictured the preparation room where a funeral director would embalm and prepare her body.

I hate admitting that, but this profession teaches you to walk into the room everyone else is trying not to imagine.

I wondered what photographs her family would bring to show the funeral director what she should look like. Which version of her they would choose? What would they need to see in order to recognize the person in the casket?

And then I wondered how many people it might take to get her there. Because as anyone who’s walked past a Sephora lately knows, beauty is so much more than a little lipstick, some rouge, and a curling iron. These days, hair is dyed, highlighted, extended, chemically straightened, and maintained according to a precise formula. Eyebrows are waxed, filled, laminated, tattooed, and microbladed.…