Tips for Cleaning Very Large Skulls or Bones

One of the first large skulls I cleaned and whitened was a deer skull. Isabel’s friend found it for her (what other 6 year old is lucky enough to have a friend who saves bones for her?). The skull was free of soft tissue, but was still really dirty and stunk badly. I didn’t realize it smelled so badly until halfway home on the bus. Sorry to all the people who had to put up with the rotting smell on the 30 minute bus ride! 😮

Cleaning such a large skull presented some problems:

I literally could not find a plastic container large enough for soaking the skull. Not even laundry baskets were wide enough to fit it.
I would have had to use TONS of hydrogen to immerse the bone. I’m not a rich person and wasn’t thrilled about spending $50+ on peroxide for a skull.

Luckily, there are some solutions for these issues.

Trash Bag Trick

Here’s a pro trick to use less hydrogen peroxide when whitening large skulls. (deer skull, cow skull)

Fill a trash can with water
Then put the skull in a sturdy plastic bag into the water.
Pour your hydrogen peroxide/water solution into the trash bag.
Since the water fills the empty space around the skull and pushes on the bag, you won’t need as much hydrogen peroxide to immerse the skull.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know about this trick or have a trash can large enough to hold my cow skull. So, I put the skull into a big trash bag, poured in some hydrogen and water, and then tied off the bag. I kind of propped everything up in a plastic drawer.

Of course the trash bag sprung a leak. The peroxide pooled at the bottom, so only part of the skull got whitened. You can see a line on the skull from the part which was sitting in the most hydrogen solution. It looks terrible!

Notice the whiter line from my first attempt at cleaning the skull.

Baking Soda + Hydrogen Peroxide Paste

Baking soda is a natural cleaning agent, right? Could I mix it with hydrogen peroxide to form a paste, and then spread the paste on the bone?

I did a small test batch. The baking soda and hydrogen foamed a bit when mixed up, but still formed a paste that could be spread onto the skull. *You can buy cheap hydrogen peroxide here.

This is the paste I made from baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. It was about as thick as toothpaste.

The great thing about the paste method is that you don’t have to use lots of hydrogen peroxide and it can be spread in all those weird nooks and crannies skulls have. The only annoying thing is that you will have to do at least two rounds – one for the top of the skull and another for the bottom.

Applying the paste to the skull. It started foaming quickly, but the paste didn’t fall off.

Here you can see what it looked like afterwards. A huge difference!

Paint On Cream Hair Developer

As I mentioned before, cream hair developer has emulsifiers added to thicken it. What’s cool about this is that you can paint it directly onto bones. There’s no need to mix it with baking soda to thicken it! After applying, cover the bones with plastic wrap. Otherwise the cream developer will dry out too quickly.

Like with the baking soda paste, this method also won’t clean the interior of the skull. Make sure your skull is completely clean of tissue before you try to whiten it by painting on cream developer.