We Tried These Viral Beauty Trends On Our Dead Son

Our son Daniel is dead and never coming back (and neither is our brief flirtation with the non-pasteurized dairy that killed him). We miss him dearly and our lives are empty without him. But true beauty bloggers never show any trace of emotion (unless they’re issuing a public apology), so we compartmentalized our grief and tried these viral beauty trends on our dead son, Daniel.

Glitter Face Masks

I was always skeptical of glitter masks. They look pretty, but does the glitter exfoliate your skin properly or just leave tiny, twinkling cuts? But, seeing as how Daniel is never coming back to us, we were willing to experiment with trends we normally wouldn’t try. The mask did exfoliate his sallow skin and it did add a nice, life-like glow. He is ready for his wake. However, the glitter, like our daily regret, was hard to wash off.

Peel-Off Lip Stain

This K-beauty trend is all the rage and we’d never tried it. How would it compare to regular lip stains? How would it compare to the stain on our reputation as parents? We applied the peel-off stain on Daniel’s lips. The tube says wait 10-15 minutes for the peel-off stain to dry, but we only had to wait five. Daniel is cold. He is cold and gone and his lips look stunning.

Tattoo Freckles

Tattoos that look like freckles are apparently the next big thing, so we applied them to Daniel. Each time the needle hit his skin we felt a pain in our hearts—as if we feared it would hurt him, even though we knew it could not. Nothing can, any more.

He looks adorable. Fresh and cute.

Illusion Makeup

Instagram is littered with talented makeup artists who create sophisticated optical illusions on their faces. They can make it seem as though they have gaping holes in their skin, extra eyes, and can even make it look like they’re blending into the walls behind them. We tried to create the illusion that Daniel was still alive. We even gave him extra eyes so it’d seem more lifelike. But in the end that’s all it was. An illusion.

Fat Freezing

We were too afraid to try freezing our own fat because it sounds painful. But there’s no laws about freezing the fat off a dead child (we were very clear about that at the medi spa). As Daniel’s body underwent the procedure, we said goodbye to his chubby baby cheeks. And the rest of him. Like the lip stain, this didn’t take long because Daniel is so very cold already. After freezing your fat you’re supposed to drink a lot of water every day. We tried to get it past his pretty, lifeless lips as best we could.

Glitter Butts

Glitter butts were all the rage at Coachella this year. We applied glitter to some of Daniel’s old training pull-ups while trying not to think about the fact that “Coachella” sounds frighteningly similar to the bacterium that killed him. Dear God, we have so many leftover pull-ups. We will be glittering these forever.

Daniel’s funeral will be an open casket, glittery butt side up. We gave the coroner special instructions we found in Cosmo.