Makeup artist Jayne Lownds works at her family’s funeral parlour
A Midlands woman who does makeup for the dead at her family’s funeral parlour has said she her job makes her feel ‘really honoured’.
Makeup artist Jayne Lownds worked at high street cosmetic stores before she decided to switch her career and instead provide looks for the dead.
The 32-year-old said her job allows her to give grieving families ‘peace’.
She said: “I’m not a particularly religious person but I would always hope that if there was an afterlife and they could see themselves, they would be pleased with how they looked.
“There’s a special understanding that those of us who work in the industry have about what we do.
“It’s a life commitment, it’s a forever-kind-of-thing.
“You feel really honoured when people choose you, you feel really special every time, and I think people do love that we’re a family.”
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Jayne, from Stoke-on-Trent, said she has always been ‘drawn’ to makeup and cosmetics and spent six years working for firms including Benefit Cosmetics and The Body Shop.
She said: “I went to Benefit Cosmetics to have my makeup done when I was 16 ahead of my prom, and I said to my mum “I’m going to work there one day”.”
Jayne, who studied dancing at university, said she was ‘torn’ between her two passions when she entered the work force in 2014 – especially as she was offered jobs in both.
She decided ‘on a whim’ to pursue makeup and started working for Benefit Cosmetics.
Jayne said: “I absolutely loved how makeup has the ability to change the way people could feel.
“You could have someone approach the counter who was unsure on how to apply makeup, or they lacked a bit of confidence.
“Seeing people light up and their personality change, I loved seeing that.
“When they walked away, their walk was completely different than when they approached.”
Jayne then moved to work for The Body Shop as a store manager.
In March 2019, Jayne’s parents Kevin, 66, and Sue, 65, told her that the family of a young woman in their care had requested for her makeup to be provided in a particular way.
Jayne said: “The young woman was very specific about the way she did her makeup, and her family wanted the makeup to look as though she had done it herself.
“It was my first experience of getting somebody ready in that way and it was a completely different feeling.
“Doing makeup was normally about the person who I was applying it to and how they would feel.
“But this was a different type of gift – it wasn’t the confidence I could give to the person, it’s what I could give to a family, and in a lot of ways, that was peace.”
Jayne returned to the funeral parlour a few days later to check on her work before the family came to visit.
While there, the young woman’s parents asked to see Jayne.
She said: “When I came through to the reception, they just threw their arms around me, they gave me a really big hug.
“They said I gave them something back that they never thought they would get to see again.”
Jayne said makeup became ‘so much more special’ to her in that moment.
She added: “I’d always loved makeup but I’d never thought about it in this way.
“I don’t think I could have put into words the feeling of being able to give people that peace.”
Over the next year, Jayne moved away from working on the high street.
In March 2020, she officially joined her family at Kevin Lownds Funeral Services followed by her sister Jacqui Bagnall-Lownds, 40, and sister-in-law Kerry Lownds, 34.
Alongside mortuary cosmetology, Jayne now wears ‘a lot of hats’ within the family business, from leading funeral services as a celebrant to working on call to take the recently deceased into their care.
She said: “When you work for a small, family-run, independent business, everybody has to be really multi-skilled.
“I studied dance and I used to do a lot of theatre performances, so I was very comfortable speaking in front of people and I used to really enjoy storytelling.
“I realised that celebrant work was finding all these beautiful moments in people’s lives and finding a way to tell the story.
“Our order of services are completely bespoke, you won’t see another one like them – they are works of art that tell a story of somebody’s life.”
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Jayne and her family also work closely with Golden Charter, the UK’s largest provider of pre-paid funeral plans.
She said: “I love pre-recording people’s wishes for their funerals because getting to speak to people when they’re not in a time of grief is really lovely.
“People say things like “wouldn’t it be funny if we had this song?” or “I’m going to write a funny poem for it to be read at the funeral and hopefully that will make people laugh”.
“You get to look at all the beautiful stuff and not necessarily the sad parts, it’s a lovely thing.”#
Jayne said she is ‘so lucky’ to work alongside her family as they ‘pull each other up’.
She went on: “I think if you have become desensitised, you’re probably in the wrong job.
“I think you have to remain sensitive and compassionate, but also brave enough to hold it in and know that it’s not your time to cry, it’s your time to be the shoulder.”
Reflecting on her career shift, Jayne urged others to ‘follow your passions’.
She added: “Something I always to come back to is life is short, so many parts of our industry point that out to us.
“You’ve got to enjoy life and follow your passions.
“When something feels right, go with it.”
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