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House your loved one's ashes in an urn that looks like THEM: Company offers personalised heads to hold cremated remains

By Thomas Durante

24 July 2012

There is now hope for those who wish to see the face of their departed loved ones in a device that doubles as a box to hold their ashes. Cremation Solutions, a Vermont-based memorial products service, is taking the idea of a traditional urn and turning it on its head, using state-of-the-art facial recognition software and 3D printers to produce human faces as realistic monuments.

The company says it can design the urn to look like anyone - all it needs are photos that show the front and side of the face the customer wishes to use. Urns are created using facial recognition software and 3D printers to create human faces like President Obama, which Cremation Solutions owner Jeff Staab says was unintentional

The heads stand on a marble plaque and come complete with a nameplate. Each urn is built to order, and customers have the chance to approve the design before each one is sent out.

The company's owner, Jeff Staab, has spent years in the funeral business, and came up with the idea two years ago when he noticed that urns were becoming much more personalised with requests for pictures and engraved messages on them.

Mr Staab told MailOnline: 'I thought, what about an urn that looks like a person? What could be more personal than that?'

He confesses that they don't sell particularly well because they look too real, and may alter the colour design to roll out urns that look more like the busts of ancient Greece.

On the Cremation Solutions website, a sample urn in the form of President Obama is prominently featured.

Mr Staab said that the likeness of the commander-in-chief was completely unintentional.

He said: 'They were supposed to send me a George Clooney, but I opened the box and it was President Obama.'

He said that the company that produced samples for him, ThatsMyFace.com, feared a lawsuit from Clooney and his reps, and sent Obama instead.

Mr Staab said that despite the imagery, he bears no ill will toward the president.

He said: 'I get complaints about that and I'm surprised the Secret Service hasn’t visited me yet. But I don’t want him dead.'

The urns do not come with hair. Cremation Solutions says on its website that hair can be digitally added, or a wig can be used to mimic the deceased's coiffure.

Each urn is available at a price of $2,600, plus shipping costs. It takes about a week to make them.

A 'keepsake-sized' person urn is also available for those who are looking for something smaller than a life-sized human head at a reduced price of $600.

Other Cremation Solution products include pendants designed to hold a loved one’s ashes, urns that look like acorns and a device used to scatter ashes.

There's also Mr Staab's top-seller - fingerprint jewellery - which allows a customer to wear an imprint of their loved one on earrings, pendants and military dog tags.