Bone cleaning is not a neutral process. It looks alarming from the outside — and from the inside, it is something closer to a reckoning.
Every specimen I work with came to me already gone. I did not take a life to make my art. But I am aware, every time, that I am handling something that had one — that breathed, moved, occupied space in the world. That awareness does not leave you.
There is a particular kind of attention that this work demands. You learn a creature's structure from the inside out — where the joints held, how the skull sat, what the spine looked like when it was still doing its job. You come to know it in a way that is difficult to describe and impossible to fake. It is not sentiment. It is something quieter than that. Something closer to gratitude.
I hold a great deal of respect for every animal that passes through my hands. That respect is not decorative. It shapes how I work, how carefully I handle each piece, and what I choose to make from it. The goal is always something that lasts — something that honours what the specimen was, by making it into something that will not be forgotten.
The Methods: An Overview
There are three main approaches to cleaning bones: maceration, beetle colonies, and oxidation. Each has its place. None of them involve boiling — and I'll explain why that matters.
Maceration
This is my personal favourite, and the method I use most often in my own work.
Maceration is simple in principle: you submerge the specimen in warm water and let bacteria do the work. The soft tissue breaks down naturally, leaving the bone clean and intact. No harsh chemicals, no structural damage.
My process: I heat the water — warm, not boiling, never boiling — and add it to a sealed container. I have been known to lean over the pot and spit into it (the more bacteria the better) like a proper old witch, which I maintain is entirely optional but spiritually satisfying. The container goes somewhere warm, and I leave it alone.
A few things I've learned the hard way:
- Change the water regularly — every few days at the start, less frequently as the process slows. Fresh water keeps the bacteria active and prevents the smell from becoming truly catastrophic.
- The timeline depends entirely on the specimen. A small bird might be done in a week. A larger mammal skull can take months. Patience is not optional.
- Small and delicate pieces — tiny bird bones, small claws, fragile skull fragments — go into a stocking or fine mesh bag before they go into the water. Otherwise you will spend an afternoon fishing for a toe bone the size of a grain of rice.
Beetle Colonies
Dermestid beetles are the professional's choice for museum-quality preparation. A colony of these small beetles will strip a specimen down to clean bone with extraordinary precision, leaving even the most delicate structures intact.
I don't currently run a beetle colony in my studio, but it's worth knowing this method exists — particularly for specimens where maceration might be too aggressive.
Oxidation
Oxidation is excellent for skeletal work and produces beautiful, clean results. It's particularly well-suited to specimens where you want a very dry, pale finish.
What oxidation is not good for: anything you want to keep structurally strong over time. And like maceration, it should never involve boiling.
Why You Should Never Boil Bones
I want to be very clear about this: do not boil your specimens.
Boiling drives fat deep into the bone structure rather than removing it. The result looks clean at first and then, over time, turns yellow, greasy, and unpleasant. It also weakens the bone. It is the single most common mistake in amateur bone preparation, and it is entirely irreversible.
Degreasing
Once the bone is clean of soft tissue, it almost always needs degreasing — especially with larger specimens or anything that was particularly fatty in life.
My method: a diluted solution of plain, uncoloured dish soap. The specimen goes in, the container goes somewhere warm, and again — patience. Change the solution regularly. The process is complete when the water stops turning cloudy and the bone no longer feels tacky.
For stubborn cases, acetone works well. It's faster and more aggressive, so I use it selectively — usually for pieces that have been sitting for a while or where the dish soap isn't making progress.
Bird bones and small, delicate pieces need gentler handling throughout. Lower concentrations, more time, less agitation. The same stocking trick from maceration applies here — keep small pieces contained so nothing gets lost or damaged.
Whitening
Once the bone is clean and fully degreased, whitening is optional — but when I do it, I use perhydrol (high-concentration hydrogen peroxide). It lifts the colour gently without damaging the structure the way bleach does.
A note: whitening should always come after degreasing is complete. If you whiten too early, you seal fat into the bone and end up with the same problem as boiling.
What This Means for My Work
Every bone that goes into a piece from my studio has been through this process — or a version of it suited to that particular specimen. It's slow, it's sometimes smelly, and it requires a level of patience that I have had to actively cultivate.
But the result is a specimen that will last. Clean, stable, properly prepared bone doesn't yellow, doesn't smell, and doesn't deteriorate. It becomes part of something permanent.
That matters to me. And I think it matters to the people who bring my work into their homes.
