A Head in a Jar

head in a jar version 1.0

Each month, we SleuthSayers exchange an internal letter, usually light-hearted nonsense in which we celebrate Rob’s dashing out another schedule to keep wheels and cogs moving behind the scenes. I happened to mention creating a head in a jar for a beautiful friend with an October birthday and a Día de los Muertos fetish.

Janice and, umm… was it Eve? … touched upon it, which gave me the idea of showing how you can make your own jarhead (not to be confused with the United States Marines). I’ll include suggestions how you might improve upon my design.

I’ve made props before for Halloween and a Jacob’s Ladder (that spark-buzzing thing in all the classic horror movies) used at the Terror on Church Street attraction. I displayed one prop in a previous SleuthSayers article.

I’ve been thinking about a head in a jar for some time and even bought a pair of 2-gallon (8 litres) glass picnic jugs, the kind you load with lemonade and has a spigot, convenient because wiring can be threaded through the hole machined for the valve stem. After pondering how I might float a brain in a jar, I concluded actual liquid in the container would become a maintenance nightmare. My solution is no solution– that is, find a coating that would give the impression of a liquid medium without using water (or formaldehyde).

In the meantime, my eye and appetite were drawn to large plastic jars at Walmart stuffed with delicious cheese balls similar to delicious puffy Cheetos. And that raised the notion of creating a preliminary head in a jar, a prototype before attempting a more ambitious floating brain.

An unfortunate fact of life is that heads to use in jars are difficult to procure since the sad passing of Burke and Hare. Finding brains in this political era is even more difficult, so I settled upon a rubber Halloween mask, available from Amazon. At least they said it was latex… it had an odd texture and a horrible smell, and a mole near the ear had hair sprouting from it. Anyway, click the following pictures to enlarge them.

Parts List

Jar

At Walmart or Sam’s Club, look for delicious giant size Utz Cheese Balls. Your jug won’t look quite like mine because the company somewhat squared their packaging design immediately after my purchase. Funny thing– the new containers contain 18% less product.

The project is nearly the same, but you can give Utz hell for inconveniencing those of us who stuff heads into bottles. In the meantime, feed your children 18% fewer delicious cheese balls and carefully peel off the label. Lick delicious cheese ball crumbs from your fingers and wash out the jar.

Mask

Besides buying the last cylindrical Utz jug from Sam’s and Walmart, I apparently bought the last mask of its kind from Amazon. That’s okay. The damned mask they sent is huge and a smaller size might look better. Also the mask really did stink to high heaven. I set it out as the flesh cured… Er, I mean as polymer vapors floated away.

Ping-Pong Balls

Ordinary tennis table balls were part of the plan, but Amazon happened to carry inexpensive glow-in-the-dark balls. Hey, why not? Perfect. When I was a grade school mad scientist (I’m not kidding), I used 3-ring binder reinforcement discs to create irises on ping-pong balls, but here I chose to leave these eyes blank giving a washed out stare.

Duct Tape

Useful against those who change their minds about donating their, well, their minds, I ordered duct tape from Amazon for the sole purpose of positioning the ping-pong eyes inside the mask. Any nearby bodies featuring duct tape constitutes mere coincidence.

Polyester

The same stuff (or stuffing) used in pillows, cushions, and rag dolls can also be used to fill out the hollow cheeks of corpses lying in state. Really. Seven ounces (200g) was good enough for my model. Once again, Amazon carried the day.

Ballast

The mask was so big, I needn’t worry about it flopping around, but I wanted to mount it stably. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time or money to create a form, but I grabbed a cylinder of baby butt wipes, about the diameter I needed. Even a can of peaches would have worked.

DIY

The plan called for positioning the container upside down for a dome effect. I’d considered using a styrofoam head like hair salon beauty schools use, but the protrusion of the nose prevented sliding the form into the jar. At that point, I switched gears and opted for a latex mask.

From inside the mask, I duct taped ping pong balls into the eye sockets. I considered drilling LEDs into the rear of the eyeballs, but the glow-in-the-dark ping-pong should suffice. I considered using heavy black thread to sew the lips, but I left that decision to the recipient. I had no idea if the device would outlast the season.

Polyester rounded out the cranium of the mask, and I worked more fiberfill around the ballast canister as I slid it into place. The nose tended to flatten, but weird creases and crevices only served to make the head look like it came from a decaying body. Neighbors began whispering the mask might conceal a real head, which would have been simply ludicrous if obnoxious Mr. Sauersnorkle hadn’t gone missing two days earlier and subsequently his widow brought me a generous tray of cookies. 

With mask, polyester padding, and ballast in place, I could just slip my hand inside the jar opening to push uncooperative bits into place. After taking the first photo above, I tucked in the dangling material seen on either side of the neck. Perfection took distant second place to [sur]realism. Once satisfied, I replaced the top and turned the gadget over, resting it on the lid.

The polyester had arrived in a cloth pouch sealed in a plastic packet. The pouch happened to precisely match the height and circumference of the jug, making it a perfect dust cover.

The head-in-a-jar seemed welcomed at the pre-Halloween birthday bash, but oddly, no one wanted to store the gizmo in their bedchambers, not the birthday girl, not her boyfriend, not her son, not her mother, not even Widow Sauersnorkle. Should I be offended?