Amish Body Preparation — Washing, Shrouding, and White Burial Garments

The Family Takes Over Where the Funeral Director Stops

In most mainstream American funerals, the funeral home handles everything from embalming to dressing to cosmetic preparation. The family sees the finished result at the viewing and never touches the body.

In most Old Order Amish communities, the process deliberately reverses this. A local funeral director handles the embalming (chemical preservation only, no cosmetics), then returns the body to the family home in a plain pine casket. From that point forward, the family reclaims full ritual authority. The funeral director leaves, and same-sex relatives — women for a deceased woman, men for a deceased man — wash the body and dress it in traditional white burial garments.

The Washing

The washing is intimate, physical, and private. It's performed by close family members of the same sex as the deceased — typically a spouse, parent, or adult child, sometimes assisted by a church deacon or elder.

The process is simple. The body has already been chemically preserved at the funeral home, so the washing is ritualistic rather than hygienic. The family washes the body with water, handling the deceased with the same modesty standards that governed their daily life. No part of the body is exposed unnecessarily.

The plain community views this direct, tactile involvement with death as theologically important. Participating in body preparation is an act of love and duty — and a physical acknowledgment that death is a natural part of God's plan, not something to be sanitized or hidden.

White Burial Garments

The clothing placed on the deceased carries deep symbolic meaning. White garments represent the equality of all souls before God and echo the biblical image of saints clothed in white robes:

For women:

• A plain white dress — and for married women, this is specifically her wedding dress, preserved in a cedar chest throughout her life for exactly this purpose
• A white cape (the triangular shoulder covering worn at her wedding)
• A white apron (also from the wedding)
• A white prayer covering (Kapp) for married women; an unmarried woman is buried in her black church cap

For men:

• A plain white shirt
• White trousers
• A white vest or a simple white burial shroud
• No metal zippers, snaps, or visible plastic buttons — fastenings historically rejected as symbols of worldly vanity and military uniformity

The garments must be made of plain fabric. No embroidery, no lace, no decorative elements of any kind. The uniformity is the point: in death, as in life, no one stands above another.

Why No Cosmetics

The instruction to the funeral director is unequivocal: no makeup. No foundation. No blush. No lip color. No skin tinting. No hair styling beyond basic cleanliness. No reconstructive work, even in cases of severe physical trauma.

The community's standard is blunt: "How it is, is how we take it." Death's physical reality is accepted without embellishment. Applying cosmetics would be an act of vanity — a violation of the Gelassenheit principle that governs every aspect of plain life.

The body's hair is washed but left unstyled. For women, it remains parted and covered by the prayer cap. For men, it's left in its natural state.

Variations by Community

The core practice — family involvement in washing and no cosmetics — holds across most Old Order Amish and conservative Mennonite communities. But the clothing details shift:

• Swartzentruber Amish maintain the strictest version of the ritual. Married couples in their 60s purchase their own pine caskets and store them on the farm, ready for immediate use.
• Old Order Mennonite communities may dress the deceased in conservative, dark-colored Sunday church clothing rather than white garments.
• Modern Mennonite families typically have the funeral director handle both embalming and dressing, using a modest commercial suit or dress provided by the family.

What Outsiders Need to Know

If you're an interfaith spouse, a diaspora child who left the community, or a secular executor responsible for a plain relative's burial:

• You may be expected to participate in the washing and dressing if you're a close same-sex relative. Ask the deacon or a trusted family elder what's expected of you.
• Instruct the funeral director explicitly — in writing if possible — that no cosmetics, no hair styling, and no restorative work should be applied. Mainstream funeral directors default to full cosmetic preparation unless told otherwise.
• Don't source garments yourself unless asked. In most communities, the white burial clothing has been prepared and stored by the family for years, sometimes decades.

The Amish & Mennonite Funeral Guide includes a printable "No-Cosmetics" directive to hand directly to the funeral director, along with the full body preparation protocol for Old Order Amish, Swartzentruber, and Mennonite traditions.