If you’ve never been inside a funeral home’s care center, it’s completely normal to feel uneasy about the unknown. Many families search what happens during embalming at the exact moment they’re also choosing a service, calling relatives, and trying to keep daily life from falling apart. The goal of this guide is to replace fear with clarity—without graphic detail—so you can make decisions that match your family’s needs, beliefs, and budget.
A modern funeral home is built around two promises: dignity for the person who died, and steadiness for the people left behind. Embalming can be part of that, especially when a family wants time for travel, a public visitation, or an open casket after embalming. But it’s also okay to decide you don’t want it, or to choose only certain parts of preparation. The point is choice—and knowing what you can ask for.
For background on when embalming is helpful (and when it’s often skipped), you may also want Funeral.com’s plain-language guide: What Is Embalming? Process, Safety, and When It’s Needed and the practical overview Embalming: What It Is, When It Helps, and When You Can Skip It.
What embalming is and what it isn’t
At its simplest, embalming is a temporary preservation process that helps slow natural physical changes after death and can support a peaceful presentation for a viewing. It’s commonly paired with other preparation steps—washing, dressing, hair care, and light cosmetics—when a family is preparing a body for viewing.
It’s also important to name what embalming doesn’t do. It doesn’t “stop time.” It doesn’t erase grief. And it can’t guarantee a specific appearance in every circumstance, because every person’s health history and timing are different. Many funeral homes will explain these limits gently, because expectations matter.
Legally, embalming is not automatically required in most situations, and you have rights as a consumer. The Federal Trade Commission makes clear that funeral providers must obtain permission before embalming when it isn’t required by law, and must provide clear, itemized pricing.
If you’re specifically worried that you’ll be pressured into embalming, Funeral.com’s guide Is Embalming Required for a Funeral? Laws, Myths, and Alternatives Explained can help you feel grounded before you sit down to make arrangements.
Step one: Receiving the body and starting care with dignity
The first step happens quietly, often before you’ve even had time to process the phone calls. The funeral home receives your loved one into its care, typically from a hospital, hospice, nursing facility, medical examiner, or home. Staff document identity carefully, because accuracy is part of respect. They also begin basic steps that support safety and preservation, which may include cooling (refrigeration) if embalming is not immediate or not chosen.
Families don’t always realize that refrigeration is often a practical alternative when the main goal is simply “time”—for relatives to arrive, for paperwork to finalize, or for a service date to be set. In many cases, you can ask: “If our goal is a short visitation, can refrigeration meet our needs instead of embalming?”
Step two: Paperwork, permissions, and your right to ask questions
Before embalming occurs, the funeral home typically needs authorization from the legal next of kin (or whoever holds authority under state law). This is where it helps to slow down and ask for clear language—especially if you’re exhausted.
You can also ask how the funeral home handles pricing transparency. Funeral homes must provide a General Price List (GPL) on request, and embalming is commonly listed as a separate line item. For a broader view of how costs and GPLs work, Funeral.com’s resources can be helpful: How Much Does a Funeral Cost? Complete Funeral Price Breakdown and Ways to Save and Funeral Costs Broken Down: What You’re Paying For and How to Compare Price Lists.
This is also a good moment to talk about your preferences: a natural look, a religious or cultural requirement, a closed-casket service, or a private family farewell. The embalmer’s work is meant to support your plan—not dictate it.
Step three: The preparation room and modern safety standards
People sometimes picture embalming rooms as something out of an old movie. In reality, modern funeral homes operate like clinical workspaces: controlled access, protective equipment, sanitation routines, and specialized ventilation.
Two things can be true at the same time: embalming is deeply human work, and it also requires rigorous workplace safety.
Because embalming chemicals may include formaldehyde-based solutions, workplace standards matter. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulates occupational exposure to formaldehyde (29 CFR 1910.1048), including monitoring, training, and protective practices for workers in settings like funeral homes.
On the infection-control side, public health guidance emphasizes standard precautions and protective equipment for people who handle remains. The CDC provides specific guidance for funeral and crematory practitioners in certain situations (including unusual infectious risks), and the big takeaway for families is this: modern preparation is built around safety and professionalism, not guesswork.
Step four: The embalming process step by step
You may have searched embalming process step by step because you want a straightforward explanation—one that treats your loved one like a person, not a procedure. That’s exactly how reputable funeral professionals approach it.
While techniques vary by case and by state practice standards, the broad flow is consistent in modern funeral homes:
The embalmer begins with careful positioning and an initial cleansing step. This is about respectful care and sanitation, and it’s typically done before any restorative or cosmetic work. From there, the embalmer introduces preservative solution through the circulatory system in a controlled way, while simultaneously managing fluid removal. The intent is temporary preservation and stabilization so that a family has a predictable window for a service or viewing.
After this, the embalmer addresses the details that families actually notice when they walk into a visitation: features resting naturally, a calm expression, skin tone that looks gentle and familiar, and clothing that fits properly. If you’ve chosen a viewing, this is where the work becomes a blend of technical skill and soft artistry—less “transformation,” more “peaceful presentation.”
If your loved one had medical interventions near the end of life, the embalmer may spend additional time ensuring everything looks neat and dignified. If an autopsy occurred, the preparation plan may be different, and that’s okay to ask about.
If you want a companion piece focused on whether this is necessary for your plans, Funeral.com’s Is Embalming Required for a Funeral? walks through the practical “when/why” questions many families have.
Step five: Washing, dressing, and cosmetics—what can be customized
Many families don’t realize they can request boundaries and preferences around appearance. If you’ve wondered can you decline certain cosmetic work, the answer is often yes, and it’s reasonable to say so plainly.
Think of preparation for viewing as a menu of choices, not an all-or-nothing package. Depending on the funeral home, you may be able to request:
- A minimal, natural look with light cosmetics only if needed
- Specific hair styling (or no styling)
- No shaving or only gentle grooming
- Clothing choices that reflect identity, culture, or faith
- A closed-casket service even if embalming is performed for timing or transport reasons
If you’re unsure what you want, you can say: “We want them to look like themselves. Can you describe what you recommend—and what’s optional?”
For families planning a visitation, it can also help to read about the human side of viewing and visiting. Funeral.com’s guide on Wake, Viewing, and Visitation Etiquette can be surprisingly comforting, because it focuses on what matters most: presence, not perfection.
Step six: Timing, viewing plans, and how long embalming lasts
Another common question is how long embalming lasts. Most funeral directors will frame this carefully: embalming is temporary. It’s meant to give you time for meaningful logistics—travel, scheduling, a multi-day service—rather than to preserve indefinitely.
What matters more than a number is your plan. A funeral home can recommend an approach based on whether you want a private goodbye, a public viewing, a service a few days away, or transport across state lines. If your family is coordinating from far away, you might find Funeral.com’s guide Planning a Funeral from Out of Town helpful as you think about scheduling realities.
Step seven: Licensing, training, and what “professional standards” really mean
When you’re trusting someone with your loved one’s care, you deserve to know what qualifies them to do the work.
In the U.S., licensing requirements vary by state, and embalmers may be licensed separately from funeral directors depending on the jurisdiction. The National Funeral Directors Association maintains a state-by-state overview that can help you understand how regulation works where you live.
On the education side, many funeral service and mortuary science programs are accredited through the American Board of Funeral Service Education, which serves as a national accrediting body for funeral service education programs.
If you want to ask direct questions in a way that doesn’t feel confrontational, you can keep it simple: “Is the embalmer licensed in this state?” and “Can you explain your preparation and safety protocols?” A good funeral home will answer calmly and clearly.
And because funeral planning is broader than embalming alone, it can help to know how to evaluate a provider overall. Funeral.com’s guide How to Choose a Funeral Home: Questions to Ask, Red Flags, and Comparing Local Options is designed for exactly that moment when you need to feel steadier.
How modern funeral choices are changing—and why embalming is more optional than many people assume
Families today are balancing tradition with flexibility. Even when a family holds a viewing, they may choose a shorter schedule, a smaller gathering, or a memorial service later.
Disposition trends help explain why. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the U.S. cremation rate is projected to be 63.4% in 2025, compared with a projected burial rate of 31.6%. That shift doesn’t mean “people don’t care.” It often means families are building meaning in different ways—through gatherings, storytelling, photographs, keepsakes, and rituals that fit modern life.
This matters for embalming because the purpose of embalming is often tied to the type and timing of service. If there isn’t a public viewing, many families skip it. If there is a viewing but the timing is short, refrigeration may be an alternative. If there’s long-distance travel or a multi-day visitation, embalming may offer predictability.
No matter what you choose, the right question is not “What do people usually do?” It’s “What do we need in order to say goodbye well?”
Questions to ask about embalming options
When you’re grieving, it helps to have words ready. The most useful questions to ask about embalming options are the ones that connect the procedure to your real plan:
If we want a viewing, what preparation steps do you recommend—and which parts are optional? If embalming is recommended, is it for timing, for presentation, for transportation, or for another reason? If we prefer not to embalm, what alternatives do we have (such as refrigeration), and how would that affect scheduling? Can we set preferences around cosmetics, hair, clothing, and overall “naturalness”? Will you explain the GPL line items so we understand exactly what we’re paying for?
If your instinct is to keep things simple, it can be reassuring to remember: you’re allowed to choose less. You’re also allowed to choose more, if that supports a meaningful farewell. The best funeral planning decisions are the ones you can look back on and say, “That fit us.”
