The first stage is the period between death and burial. During this time the mourners are excused from all religious duties in order to prepare the burial.
After the burial, a period of seven days of mourning – the “shiva” begins. During this time the mourner does not leave his house...
Luke 23:
53Then he took the body down from the cross and wrapped it in a long linen cloth and laid it in a new tomb that had been carved out of rock.54This was done late on Friday afternoon, the day of preparation for the Sabbath.55 As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where they placed his body.56Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to embalm him. But by the time they were finished it was the Sabbath, so they rested all that day as required by the law...
Luke 24 1But very early on Sunday morning the women came to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared (to embalm Him)
The shiva wouldn't have started until they were satisfied Jesus had been given a proper Jewish burial WHICH INCLUDED THE EMBALMING (with spices and ointments)
(1) According to some interpretations of Jewish law, embalming is forbidden. There is some debate among Jewish sages as to the precise point where cleansing the body ends and embalming begins.
(2) According to Jewish law, shiva begins as soon as the body is buried.
Placing someone in their tomb is presumably a burial.
I'm not saying DonQ is necessarily right - just that his viewpoint merits consideration and is not automatically "baloney".
Perhaps Joseph of Arimathea, being a Pharisee, felt that washing Jesus and wrapping him in a shroud fulfilled the mitzvah. Perhaps some other friends of Jesus, who did not come from a Pharisaic background, had a different opinion about whether the body had been properly embalmed or buried.
Further, most Christians take for granted that Christ's being placed in the tomb constituted a burial, as the early creeds attest.
All other things being equal, I don't think there's any principle of Jewish law which says that a body cannot be considered buried until it is washed in spices and ointments. I believe simply washing the body in accordance with ritual ablutions would suffice.