Simply put, embalming is the process of temporarily preserving a corpse by draining the blood and fluids from the body and replacing them with a chemical solution. Historically, embalming was done with formalin (formaldehyde) solutions. Today, we have equally-effective alternatives that are not formaldehyde based.
Many traditional funeral homes will tell you company policy requires embalming for visitation. We emphatically do not require embalming to have a visitation or a witness cremation at our facility.
To learn more of the details of what exactly happens during the embalming process, please watch the video from our founder Caitlin Doughty, What exactly happens to a body during embalming?.