Regina: Hi everybody! 

John: Hey Regina!

Billy: Hey Reg!

Adrianne: Hey! 

Regina: I have a question that has been bothering me for a while. It is from a book. I think the reason it’s been bothering me for a while is because the last time I actually read a full book was before the pandemic, because I’ve just had a really hard time focusing on books during this time.

John: I think I’ve started three books during the pandemic, which is already very low, but I have not finished any of them.

Regina: Yeah. Oh, I’ve started a ton, but this book in particular is called ‘My Year Of Rest and Relaxation.’ 

Adrianne: Oh! Perfect!

Regina: Right? I know, very fitting. I think we’ve all had a really relaxing restful year.

John:  That about sums it up for us. Yeah.

Regina: It’s by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Adrianne: Is it fiction or nonfiction?

Regina: It’s fiction.

Adrianne: Okay.

Regina: I’m really not going to focus too much on the plot of the book because it’s a little bit complicated and it’s also a bit dark, but I highly recommend the book. I really, really, really can’t stress enough how much I liked it. But it’s really just this one question from the book that has stuck with me.

So at this point in the book, the protagonist is thinking about her mother who has died almost exactly seven years earlier. And she’s remembering back to her memorial and she narrates, “Her hair was perfect. Her lipstick was perfect. Blood red, Christian Dior 999. If I unearthed her now, would the lipstick have faded?”

Billy: Uh…what 999? 

Regina: Christian Dior 999. 

Billy: Christian Dior.

Regina: So if you look up this lipstick. Yeah. It’s like a perfect red.

Adrianne: Yeah.

Regina: Like one of those reds that is supposed to kind of look good on everybody, regardless of your skin tone.

John: Is this what they call candy apple red?

Adrianne: Well, the writer calls it blood red. 

Regina: Yeah.

Adrianne: It’s like, yeah, it’s like nice oxidized blood. I mean, to me, this is like the classic, like Hollywood blonde red lipstick.

Regina: Yes, exactly. But before we get too much further down this, I want to know just based on that sentence and based on the very little I have told you, do you think that the lipstick would have faded?

Adrianne: Were the lips prepared by a professional?

Regina: I think it’s safe to assume she was prepared by a professional. She was very wealthy, she was also very vain and not someone who would just be buried in anything. The passage also specifies that she was buried in a carnation pink Thierry Mugler suit.

Adrianne: That does sound fancy.

Regina: Yeah, exactly. That’s a high-end designer suit so, I’m going to assume that we’re talking about like a pretty high end funeral.

John: How long has it been? Seven years?

Regina: Seven years.

John: Does lipstick itself break down?

Adrianne: It’s hitting me as being about the color. Like you imagine the mother is laid out in her coffin at the wake and she looks perfect and she has these perfect red lips. And the red lips, I mean, it makes you look alive. And I think that, that’s kind of the question, like, would she look this lively? Would she have these bright red lips? After seven years.

Billy: Isn’t that like special lipstick though? They don’t use normal consumer lipstick for that, right? They had to do something special?

Regina: What do you think they used?

Adrianne: Spray paint?

Billy: Right. It’s like the McDonald’s cheeseburger in the commercial. It’s not the McDonald’s cheeseburger you eat, and that’s also the way I think about dead bodies, right?

Regina: You think about dead bodies, just like you think about cheeseburgers? Got it.

Adrianne: Right. Like, why would it be lip- why would it be the same lipstick that you put on an alive person?

Regina: I think if you are that specific about like, this is the lip color that I wear, then you’re not going to just let somebody take some red paint leftover from when they put an accent wall in their living room up, you know?

Adrianne: Right. Okay. Unless, unless they make matte, glossy and mortician. 

John: It’s called Dead as a Dior nail.

[groans of disapproval]

Are there lips for the lipstick to be on seven years out?

Billy: Well, if it’s like an airtight sealed coffin, then that’s one case versus if things can crawl in there and whatnot.

John: Can you read the, can you read the passage again?

Regina: “Her hair was perfect. Her lipstick was perfect. Blood red, Christian Dior 999. If I honor her now, would the lipstick have faded?”

Billy: So there’s the question of the lipsticks on its own, does that break down? But also I would think there’s the question of like, okay, you put lipstick on a human body and then you just let that sit for a period of time, does the lipstick start to color- does it start to meld with the flesh? And so would that mean it could last longer, does it essentially become like a tattoo or something that you would imagine would stay longer because it just becomes embedded in your body?

John: Right.

Regina: Right. And especially with fancier lipsticks and with these like higher end ones, the whole thing with the pigment and to get this really bright color is, it’s really, really finely ground and then like melted into the base. And so that can basically stain your lips. So rather than sitting on top of your lips, it could stain it.

Billy: So I would kind of think high end lipstick might not last as long, because it might be made of safer, better materials than cheap lipstick? Right? I don’t know.

John: Hmm.

Adrianne: Hmm. Yeah. Like it’s more organic

Billy: Yeah. Like it’s made of crushed Rose petals instead of like-

Adrianne: Microplastics.

Billy: Yeah. OLED and microplastics. It’s like a, it’s like a fancy croissant versus a twinkie, right? Like, which is going to last longer. If you put it in the ground.

John: But we’re talking about this specific lipstick, right? Will this Dior 999 last seven years applied to a dead person?

Adrianne: Right. Right. 

Regina: Yes. So I have the full ingredient list for this particular lipstick. Adrianne, how would you feel about reading this?

Adrianne: These are definitely unpronounceable words that I haven’t practiced at all. Okay.

Regina: Yeah, it’s super easy.

Adrianne: #10599/A POLYGLYCERYL-2 TRIISOSTEARATE ● HYDROGENATED POLYISOBUTENE ● HYDROGENATED POLYDECENE ● SYNTHETIC WAX ● METHYL HYDROGENATED ROSINATE ● POLYBUTENE ● TRIMETHYLOLPROPANE TRIISOSTEARATE ● OZOKERITE – I like that one 

ETHYLHEXYL PALMITATE- I like that one too. 

C10-30 CHOLESTEROL/LANOSTEROL ESTERS ● CALCIUM CARBONATE ● POLYETHYLENE ● CERA ALBA – which is beeswax.

Billy: Jessica’s sister.

Regina: I’m going to start speeding these up so that we can get through them.

Adrianne:  CALCIUM ALUMINUM BOROSILICATE ● DISTEARDIMONIUM HECTORITE ● MANGIFERA INDICA (MANGO) SEED BUTTER ● CAPRYLIC/CAPRIC TRIGLYCERIDE ● DECYLOXAZOLIDINONE ● PARFUM (FRAGRANCE) ● HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL ● LUFFA CYLINDRICA SEED OIL ● ETHYLHEXYL HYDROXYSTEARATE ● BHT ● CRITHMUM MARITIMUM EXTRACT ● TRIHYDROXYSTEARIN ● ALUMINUM HYDROXIDE ● PROPYL GALLATE ● BUTYLENE GLYCOL ● PHENOXYETHANOL ● GERANIOL ● SODIUM HYALURONATE ● CITRONELLOL ● AMYL CINNAMAL ● TOCOPHEROL ● LIMONENE ● CITRAL ● BENZYL BENZOATE ● [+/- :CI 12085 (RED 36, RED 36 LAKE) ● CI 15850 (RED 6, RED 7, RED 7 LAKE) ● CI 15985 (YELLOW 6, YELLOW 6 LAKE) ● CI 19140 (YELLOW 5, YELLOW 5 LAKE) ● CI 42090 (BLUE 1 LAKE) ● CI 45380 (RED 21, RED 21 LAKE, RED 22 LAKE) ● CI 45410 (RED 27, RED 27 LAKE, RED 28 LAKE) ● CI 73360 (RED 30, RED 30 LAKE) ● CI 77891 (TITANIUM DIOXIDE) ● CI 77163 (BISMUTH OXYCHLORIDE) ● CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499 (IRON OXIDES) ● CI 77742 (MANGANESE VIOLET )].

And that’s how you make a Christian Dior 999!

John: This is wild! But I have all that on me and I’m going to make some lipstick tonight.

Adrianne: Oh my gosh! 

Regina: Yeah. Wow! I think we kind of have to talk to a scientist to figure out what literally any of that is?

Billy: Yeah.

Adrianne: Well, lipstick is a technological marvel.

Billy: I don’t trust any of this. This is why I just prick my finger and rub the blood onto my lips.

Regina: How does that work for you, Billy?

Billy: Pretty well.

Regina: Cool.

Adrianne: But, I mean, the main challenge with lipstick is that you are moving your mouth a lot and eating and drinking, and you want your lipstick to stay, which obviously isn’t an issue on a dead body.

Regina: Right, exactly. It feels like the dead body aspect of it, as many variables as it does introduce, it at least a more controlled environment, right?

Adrianne: And we’re, we’re basically doing over under seven years. Who’s over, who’s under?

John: It’ll be out of the life. I’m going to go with, it’s not going to fade.

Adrianne: Me too. Billy, that means you have to take the under.

Billy: Uh! But I- okay. Well, I was-

John: Nope. Those are rules bud! 

Billy: Well, here’s my prediction.

Regina: Nobody forces Billy into a corner.

Billy: The lipstick will be- lipstick itself will be preserved, but it will separate more from the flesh, and so it won’t look the same on the person’s face.

Regina: Okay.

Billy: So they won’t look as pretty. They’ll look more like a sad clown. 

Regina: Okay!

Billy: That’s my prediction.

Regina: I don’t know if that’s an over or an under, but I’m just going to go with it.

John: Pretty funny, Billy got it exactly right just now.

Billy: Experts like, “well, it remains intact, but she would look like a sad clown”.

Regina: In the end, you got a sad clown. 

Adrianne: After the break, Regina sees red. Many, many shades of red.

Regina: Hi listeners! It’s Regina. Sorry, I know you have heard a lot of my voice this week, but here I am anyways talking to you about our Patreon. I’m doing that because Underunderstood is an independent podcast that we’re doing in our spare time, and we are able to do that because of Patreon.

The way it works is, listeners like you donate $5 per month and that helps our show keep going. You also get some access to some extra stuff, like a Discord channel where you can hang out with us and other listeners and you get a whole bonus show called Overunderstood. 

Overunderstood is sort of like a looser format than this show, like last week when we covered misinformation, we also dove into Canada, and football and all in one little episode. We do this every week even when Underunderstood is on break so if you can we’d love for you to join us. 

It’s $5 a month and you can sign up at patreon.com/underunderstood. Either way, thanks for supporting the show. It really does mean a lot to us. Thanks! 

Hi everyone! I’m back.

Adrianne: Hello!

John: Hello!

Regina: I did not dig up a body.

Adrianne: Okay.

Billy: So you got someone to do it for you.?

Regina: Yeah.

Billy: Nice!

Regina: I definitely talked to people who have buried bodies. 

John: Okay. 

Adrianne: Okay.

Regina: If that counts… 

Adrianne: This is getting interesting.

Regina: Yeah, I think so. Pretty much as soon as I started trying to figure this out, I realized that I was in over my head. So I contacted a professor who teaches funeral services. 

David Penepent: My name is Dr. David Penepent, and I’m the director of funeral services administration at the State University of New York Canton

Regina: He was a little confused.

Adrianne: Oh, God. 

David Penepent: Well, I really don’t understand the question? But, you know, what are they trying to get at? Maybe you can help me out here because I’m just at a loss.

Regina: So I think I went in a little hot with David. It was morning and I was flustered and yeah, I went in and went too hot. And he was like, I just don’t know what you’re asking me. 

At this point, I kind of realized that calling people and asking them about a very specific hypothetical situation involving a corpse is maybe a bad approach. And decided to break things down and start with the makeup. And I found this nylon article called mortuary makeup artists gave us their best beauty tips. 

Adrianne: Hell, yeah. 

Regina: Which concept of it is kind of strange to me but I love it. 

John: Wait, did they mean giving tips for living people or dead people? 

Regina: Yeah. It’s like, “here’s how we do this on dead people so that you can learn from it?”

John: Huh?

Billy: Here’s how to immortalize you. 

Regina: This article quoted a few different beauticians who do this for a living. And so I contacted one of them.

Amber Carvaly: My name is Amber Carvalvy. I am a licensed funeral director. I worked for the briefest of times as an apprentice embalmer. I ran a funeral home for about four years. I ran undertaking LA. I became a funeral director because I wanted to be an embalmer. I had zero desire to work with families. I’m a waitress. I wanted to never talk to another human again. I’m very excited to only work with dead bodies. Dead bodies are amazing. It is so peaceful and there is such a spiritual, and I’m not a super spiritual person, but there is such a beautiful, quiet that you only get from being around the dead.

Adrianne: Just her saying that does sound peaceful.

Regina: Right. Exactly. So then I asked Amber about the process of applying makeup to a body.

Amber Carvaly: So essentially the process on an embalmed body, I would almost say is the same as doing makeup on your friend who’s alive, because the embalming fluid, because of the way it dehydrates the body and firms and pumps everything is incredibly helpful and mimics a life essence within you.

Regina: Before we get too much further with Amber, I want to explain again, we’re talking about fiction. So our main character didn’t specify that her mother had been embalmed. But for memorials, it’s really, really common for people to get embalmed. And it’s also just like an easier way to control the situation so that everything stays in place. Like Amber said, “there’s less moisture.” The body doesn’t get sweaty, and so I feel pretty confident that we can assume the mother was embalmed.

Amber Carvaly: And embalmed body is much easier to put makeup on. And we call it in the industry, they say cosmetize. 

So what happens is you go, you get embalmed. You’re put onto, you’re kept on a table. We’ll put some massage cream on your face, which is just a heavy, heavy cream to keep the face from dehydrating because the skin they’re so thin. Maybe they’ll put a little sheet of plastic over the face, which looks very disturbing, but I assure you, it is practical in this situation.

Regina: And then from there, there’s a lot of tips and tricks, which is what that whole nylon article is about. If you’re, looking for some ways to switch up your routine. 

Adrianne: Always. 

Regina: But it’s really not that different.

Adrianne: Did you ask her, are they using real lipstick?

Regina: Yes. At this point I told Amber about the quote from the book and how I was interested in how lipstick is applied to bodies. And I wanted to know how long it would last.

Amber Carvaly: Yeah, that’s so interesting because I mean, I have lipstick from that long ago that I don’t necessarily wear, but, I actually donated it to my cosmetic smile for working on dead bodies.

John: Huh.

Regina: So, yes, they use real lipstick.

Adrianne: And Amber saying she has lipstick that is seven years old and it still looks okay.

Regina: Yeah, exactly. 

Billy: And she’s putting it on dead bodies.

Regina: And she’s putting it on dead bodies. 

Adrianne: Just all over the dead bodies.

Amber Carvaly: That makeup still has it’s pigment and it still looks okay. So I don’t know, I’d be curious if it was still on the lips or if it had oxidized. Oxidized and reacted to the body and eventually faded, but I don’t know. I imagine it could still be there.

Adrianne: Okay. I feel it’s leaning in the over direction of it would still be there after seven years, based on that. So what’s what happens to these ingredients?

Regina: So I think Amber’s experience about, you know, actually using lipstick and broad understanding of how the body is prepared is obviously helpful, but I felt the next thing to really do was to talk to somebody who understands the science of what happens to the ingredients over time.

John Newsam: I did my undergraduate and doctoral degrees in chemistry at Oxford university. And then I went to Japan and worked in a physics department for almost two years, and then decided to continue a research career and came to the US and worked first at Exxonmobil in New Jersey. And I was then headhunted to join a molecular simulation software company.

John: Woah.

Billy: I was impressed till he got to New Jersey.

Regina: So a person listing all of these, very scientific sounding jobs is a man named John Newsam. I got in touch with him via the American Chemical society. 

After his time in Jersey, John moved out to the West coast and for the last 15 years or so, he has been working for a company that does early development of formulations that are applied to the skin.

John Newsam: So when we think specifically about a lipstick, the primary reason we’re doing it is for color. So the first characteristic there, the formulation is it has to be able to contain the ingredients that give it the right color.

Regina: So the right color makes it sound kind of simple but obviously it’s not like one right color or even one version of each color. There are a lot of different shades and each shade requires a combination of a lot of different colors. 

John Newsam: Secondly, it has to be able to adhere appropriately to the skin, the skin forming the lens. We worry about the ability to spread the product when we apply it on the skin. So if it was just a hard wax, like a candle, we wouldn’t be able to deposit enough of that on the skin unless we did it multiple times.

So, the spreadability of the formulation is also important. So for durability, we’re fighting a few different things. The first is our lips are going to contact various objects, some inanimate and maybe some animate.

Billy: Now does a dead body count as inanimate or animate?

Regina: I’m going to say that a dead body counts as inanimate.

Adrianne: Yeah,  I’m going to call that inanimate.

Regina: Like pretty, pretty solidly.

Billy: Okay.

Regina: So when they’re making the formulas right, they have to worry about making sure that the lipstick is easy enough to apply, but hard to accidentally remove.

John Newsam: So any product to be commercially viable, it has to survive more or less intact the manufacturing, the packaging process, shipment, and then sitting on the shelf for what might be two years.

Regina: And that all just means they have to test it under a lot of different conditions.

John Newsam: So how do we test this? Well, it’s tested in a number of ways because stability can either be kind of physical stability. We’re just asking, has the shape changed? Has the spreadability changed with time? Or it could be a chemical where some chemicals are going on in the product to change its characteristics.

So the way we do those measurements will then put the product, ideally in the package in which it will be sold into a controlled environment. And that’s typically we’d maintain it for example, at 25 degrees C and 60% relative humidity. That’s a measure of the water content of the atmosphere.

Regina: So that’s 77 degrees Fahrenheit and then 60% relative humidity is kind of the high end of what’s considered comfortable.

John Newsam: But also, we would put it in a higher temperature and higher relative humidity. And the reason that’s important is any chemistry that’s happening gets substantially more rapid with an increase in temperature about a factor of two per 10 degrees. So by going to the higher temperature, we can actually accelerate the process of aging or fading or the chemistry that’s happening. And that allows us to assess the chemical stability without having to wait the two years that we’d have to wait for under normal conditions.

Regina: So, they basically can see what would happen over two years’ time. And two years is the standard expiration for a thing of lipstick to be the same as it was when you first bought it.

John: That seems really short.

Adrianne: I think this falls under the category of stuff that we should be replacing more, but don’t.

John: Right.

Regina: Right. I think that the real thing that we’re asking here is, what are the processes that contribute to the color of lipstick fading over such a long period of time? And I think that the reason that it is so on Googleable, is because it’s not tested for seven years, right? Because who would want to keep- I mean, one, it’s not even tested that the lipstick itself not on a person is stable for seven years, but two, who wants to keep the same lipstick on for seven years? You would want to wash it off at some point, right? So why would that be tested for? So this is where I feel the chemistry really comes in.

John Newsam: We’re actually talking here about much longer term processes and they really fall into three categories. The first is physical, right? The second is chemical. Then the third is microbial.

Adrianne: So there’s basically three fronts in the battle against decay.

Regina: Exactly. So I think the physical one is pretty obvious.

John Newsam: If you just put some lipstick on and lay outside on the pavement for a few days, right? I mean, eventually even if you weren’t alive, the lipstick would eventually come off because it’s raining, and there’s other things going on.

Billy: I’m assuming you tried this right?

Regina: I imagine if you put lipstick on and laid in the pavement for a few days, at some point, you definitely wouldn’t be alive, you know?

John: Depends on where you are.

Billy: Yeah. I think David Blaine tried this at one point.

Regina: What color lipstick though?

Billy: Red, for sure.

Regina: So from just a purely physical perspective, the color and the intensity can change.

John Newsam: So those are some of the physical processes. So, so even if no chemistry was happening and there were no microbes, with time, you’d expect the intensity of the color to change. 

Adrianne: Oh my…

John Newsam: You’d also expect the hue, the actual details to change cause the different color of molecules diffuse and dissolve at different rates.

John: Oh.

Adrianne: Huh.

Regina: But then, he said there were three categories. So once we get into the second category, which is chemistry, it’s about the molecules and the compounds in the lipstick, as well as the molecules and compounds that they’re coming in contact with. So we talked about water when we were talking about the physical section, but it comes up here again, because of the chemical compounds in lipstick and the fact that they’re slowly susceptible to hydrolysis, which basically just means that they react with water.

John Newsam: What chemistry can happen depends on the molecule that we’re looking at or the compound we’re looking at, and the sorts of things it’s in contact with. If no water is present, there’s no ability for that chemistry to happen. When water is present, it will happen.

The rate at which that chemistry happens, and hence the rate at which fading occurs may depend on other things that are present. For example, some of the other components may accelerate the rate of that hydrolysis and hence increase the rate of fading and in some campaigns, the rate of hydrolysis depends on the pH, the degree of acidity or alkalinity. So, that’s the second type of reaction.

Regina: Next is oxidation, which is how the lipstick would react to the environment around it. There are certain ingredients in the lipstick that when they become oxidized could change the color, but it’s hard to predict the rate at which that would happen.

Adrianne: Hmm. I feel the case is mounting… against me.

John: And me.

 Adrianne: And John.

Regina: Our third category is a big one and it is? I’m waiting for one of you to guess it.

Billy: Uh…the mic-

Regina: The microbial one! 

Billy: Thanks. 

Regina: You all fail. 

John Newsam: What is astonishing, you know, where the huge beneficiaries of this, that there are microbes out there that have the ability to metabolize, to eat and convert what to them are useful products, all sorts of different compounds, including many of the constituents of a lipstick.

Regina: So the microbes are like little Pac-Man that will eat things.

John: I like this idea of a little Pac-Man. 

John Newsam: In that environment, there’ll be lots of microbes, and with time, I’d expect my microbial degradation of the lipstick.

Regina: So, what I wanted to kind of get a handle on next is how all of these processes would either speed up or slow down once you’re underground, in a casket?

John: Oh, so you’re thinking like if it slows down underground, seven years might be enough to keep the color of the thing?

Regina: Exactly. We kind of now understand the inevitable things that will happen based on different variables.

John: Right. But in a dead body, which is like, yeah, right, It’s been embalmed to stay stable, you’re in a dark place. Yeah. 

Regina: Exactly. 

John: Okay.

John Newsam: For lipstick that’s on a body surface in the ground that the oxygen lab was tend to be a lot lower. So oxidation may be slowed down. And again, these reactions may at room temperature be quite slow, but over seven years, it may be enough to completely eliminate one of the colors.

Adrianne: Dammit.

Regina: Yeah. So we’ve got chemical reactions that are happening maybe a little bit slower, but will likely still lead to some noticeable color fade, not sure how long that takes. We have microbes all over the place just eating anything that they can and things are not looking great. But in a last ditch effort asked John to look at the specific ingredients in the lipstick that we’re talking about, Christian Dior 999 and see if that changes anything here.

John Newsam: So in this particular product that you sent me, there’s BHT, which is Butylated hydroxytoluene is actually a chemical name. And that is a very commonly used antioxidant. That’s why it’s in the product, it’s to prevent oxidation happening. Typically, a product that is supplied topically we’ll also include a preservative, and that means something that will prevent microbes from growing on in the product. So, that’s another thing. 

But keep in mind that again, these are tend to be small molecules and when the product’s being subjected to challenging circumstances,  that that’s going to dissolve diffuse with time that the product won’t remain intact for more than a- I mean, seven years, there’s kind of borderline, I would think.

Adrianne: Ha!

Regina: Borderline.

John Newsam: But it’s not like you have- the lipstick is different containers of each of the components. They’re all mixed together. And so it may be that a colorant molecule, a dyer, a pigment is actually in case, in case than a wax, and because the wax is unreactive, the bugs, the oxygen, the water can’t get in to do the damage.

Adrianne: Hmm…okay. 

Billy: Complicates things.

John: Inconclusive.

Adrianne: Yeah.

Regina: Very inconclusive! But also very interesting.

John: Yeah.

Regina: Because that’s where it’s like, what is the definition of lipstick? The pigment is still there. It’s enveloped in wax. So the lipstick is kind of still there, it’s just not necessarily- it’s not applied in the same way.

Billy: What you’re saying is, like a sad clown.

Regina: I don’t believe I used either of those words.

Billy: Okay, Just saying this is pretty close to what my prediction was maybe minus those specific words.

Regina: Uh, okay. So if you remember Amber from the beginning, she mentioned that she uses a really heavy cream on the skin of the bodies because it’s so thin, and so I asked John about that.

John Newsam: I mean, their goal is to have it last a week- at most two. So it will be- and it can’t be obvious. It’s going to be a really thin film and- but almost certainly it is a wax, it’s probably a hydrocarbon of some sort. So that will help, that will definitely help, but keep in mind, once the underlying tissue degrades even if it remains in place, which I don’t think it will for very long, the other side and also be accessible.

Adrianne: Okay. So that’s the take. That’s the bottom line.

John Newsam: What I would expect is you would find those sorts of molecules still intact, and you would have traces, faint traces, still of color, but most of the color would be gone.

Regina: So basically even if the microbes don’t eat the lipstick, they will eventually still eat the tissue.

Billy: Hmm.

John: And then there’s nothing for the lipstick to be on.

Adrianne: Yeah, that seems relevant. If they eat the lips, no lipstick does fade.

Billy: Well, but then at that point, are the microbes wearing the lipstick?

John: Oh!

Regina: Little Pac-Man with lipstick?

Billy: Yeah, little Pac-Man clowns.

Regina: The traces of the wax and the pigment will still be there. If you dig up the remains, there will still be traces of lipstick, even if the lips are gone.

John: So we’re already veering away from the perfect look that was described in the book.

Adrianne: Yeah, don’t think it’s going to look perfect.

Regina: Exactly. Our original question of will the lipstick have faded? Is a pretty clear no. It’s not going to look perfect. It’s not going to be the same color. There will likely be traces of lipstick there, but it will not be what it once was. 

But I think ultimately it’s about more than the traces of lipstick that remain. Remember David, the first funeral services expert that I spoke to and sort of confused/overwhelmed right off the bat? I think that sort of happened because I came in with a really specific question and I was looking for a really specific answer and he didn’t give me that.

Billy: Hmm.

Regina: But he did kind of set me straight. When I explained the context of the passage to him.

David Penepent: Don’t take this literally, look at what this is trying to say. That’s grief. It’s not about the lipstick fading. That’s grief.

Regina: David’s entire job is actually sort of all about this. He teaches his students that part of this process is seeing the death event as the start of the grieving experience. And if we are talking about the whole grieving experience, the sentence that comes right after the one we’ve been discussing seems pretty relevant.

After asking if the lipstick would have faded, she says “either way, she’d be a stiff husk, like the sloughed off exoskeleton of a huge insect. That’s what my mother was.”

Billy: From this brief passage, it seems to me she never got to her core as a human being. She was all of- she was all of these other things that either haunted her or dressed her up, but she never really knew her. The core human inside of her mother.

Regina: Exactly. And I think maybe what the question really meant was, was there a human underneath that lipstick? And I think that science shows that there was.

David Penepent: That in essence is a part of how people cope with the complexity of a grieving experience. So, that’s my interpretation. It’s really a complex one.

Billy: Underunderstood is John Largomarsino, Regina Dellea, Adrianne Jeffries and me, Billy Disney.

Regina: We’re an independent podcast so, if you like the show, please share it with your friends. Or give us a review on Apple podcasts. We’ve been seeing a lot of nice people recommending the show on Reddit lately so if that was you, we see you and we appreciate you and keep spreading the word.

John: You can also support us directly on Patreon. If you become a patreon, you’ll get access to our weekly bonus show Overunderstood and our private Discord server. 

You can find information and how to subscribe at patreon.com/underunderstood or by clicking the link in the show notes. If you’re already a patron, you rock.

Billy: Thanks for listening.