Product development at BARE BONES SOLUTIONS

June 6, 2026

In the last month, Bare Bones turned development up to ten. Development has not been this active since we worked on the powder. We burned through dozens of jaws in a matter of days after unleashing years of work and research. Our goal was ambitious: to raise the thermal limit of bone in our kitchens by manipulating collagen using safe materials we can get from a grocery store. The chemicals do not permanently alter bone. After a final day of confirmation testing by Tobi, we are pleased to announce mission accomplished. We maintained a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius for four hours, and we have done it twice. This temperature shrank and warped controls in less than 15 seconds.

This is not the first time this has been accomplished; it was done in a lab setting before. What we achieved is creating our own method, with different chemicals and extra steps while doing it in a kitchen and having our own test to check if it works.

How did we do this? How do we know we succeeded? Without an atomic force microscope, we cannot directly observe the collagen. We demineralized bone over the course of weeks. This makes the bone floppy, and able to warp as it is experiences inappropriate heat. We exposed it to several chemicals sequentially and then to various heats until deformity or critical failure. If the bone warped, we knew it wasn't protected by our chemicals. Pretty simple. The last step is a cooling procedure.

This is a big deal, but doesn't practically help anyone yet. We can certainly use the cooling protocol, which claws back collagen elasticity and helped reverse shrinkage and deformities. Perhaps the reinforcing chemicals can be used to help with more delicate bone. As with any breakthrough, it is likely that more work will end up with a practical technique.

May 2, 2026

When bone is heated to excess people claim that fats "move deeper into the bone" or "bake into the bone". These guesses don't provide any reason for what is actually happening, and just give an excuse for the non-workability of the material. Without an understanding of what is happening, how can we expect to move this material out of bone?

Here are some photos of what is actually going on.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DX2PBDdjzvl/?img_index=1

Above 44C collagen can start deforming in adult mammal bone. Simmering temperatures (80- 90C) are ideal for gelatin production. Gelatin is sticky on smooth surfaces. Inside a wicking, non-smooth surface like bone it becomes more difficult to move. Gelatin is able to emulsify fats. When fats are overheated, they oxidize more readily, turning black and becoming more resistant to some non-solvent cleaners.

These gelatin-oxidized fat wicked-into-bone nightmare blobs are not moving deeper into the bone, they are already in the bone waiting to be transformed by excess heat. As they cool, especially with insulation from the bone (which is a decent insulator) there is a chance the fats may crystalize, making them even more resistant to soaps.

Here, I present photos of gelatin, bone and oxidized fats and a smoking gun of them interacting (red circle).

As usual, we already have a way to possibly deal with these and may look into it in the near future.

April 3, 2026

The blood remover works in hours, and as a result we have gathered a lot of information about how it works. We may be able to maximize biodegradability and will therefore be concluding this round of testing prematurely to explore options.

March 24, 2026

We have a new product in beta testing which is a devoted blood stain remover. This product works by making the iron in blood water soluble, which is similar to other iron removing products. Where the it differs is how it achieves this. Most other products may use acids such as Flurosilicic, Oxalic or Citric Acids in combination. These work great and make great products. They don’t need to worry about damaging bone, though. We have come up with a mechanism that should protect the calcium in the bone better. It seems like it should be pretty cheap and in testing it worked on removing blood in just two hours and even removed iron based stains from old teeth and ironstone in rock.

This product is available to Canadians for a cost of $15 for 0.5 liters or $25 for 1 liter. The application is only 10ml per 5 gallons of water. It is heated the same as the degreasers for faster results, or unheated and left overnight.

We have reached the conclusion of our roadmap for 2025/2026. This included the massive push that was triggered when we were awarded the grant from Alberta Innovates. Since mid-December, 2025, we achieved:

-Filming how-to videos and a commercial
-Presence at two enormous trade shows
-Massive brand awareness growth and sales
-A new product beta test
-Recruiting of Kayla, our new Vice President
-Training for Tobi at multiple museums across Western Canada
-International collaboration with enzyme producers

I am probably missing something in there. It has been exhausting and now we must make a new roadmap which begins with planning, moves into resource gathering, then staging and finally, execution. The focus of this next one will surely be centered around entry to the United States market.

February 9, 2026

On February 8, 2026 Bare Bones was lucky enough to have three videos shot by a professional crew. They worked on "Night of the Reaper" which was a top movie on Shudder streaming movie last year and filmed in Calgary. It is a great movie. The instagram post here has pictures: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUhOs6nDxqY/

This post introduces our new business person, Kayla Chase who comes to us via the PROPEL program at U of Calgary. She is getting her masters in business and has a PhD in Neuroscience.

That is Danee Walker featured in the commercial, who we met all the way back at our first event at Telus Spark in October 2024. She and her partner John have been great friends of Bare Bones for a long time, and now she is in our commercial and videos! We love collaborations with fans and customers!

We were fortunate enough to have been sent lipase enzymes directly from England by the generous people at www.scientificandtechnical.com to test on bones. Those tests are ongoing.

The alpha test for blood and metal staining chemicals has pivoted to a different set of chemicals. The results are up on instagram. That chemical concoction may be ready at any time.

We will be at our first trade show in Calgary on February 20, 2026. It is the Calgary Boat and Outdoor Show. See you there!

December 16, 2025

As many have already seen, we have been awarded a grant through Alberta Innovates. This grant is allocated to help with non-research business needs. As they say, hire for your weaknesses. We are excited for the possibilities this will open for us and are extremely grateful for the opportunity. There are many applicants, and they all deserve funding too.

We have ordered some test chemicals. One of them will enter alpha testing immediately for removal of blood stains in bone. We have contacted a few product users about it already. Unfortunately, we have limited amounts in alpha testing so we are going to keep it internal, local and to a few specific long-term testers. This should be a swift test, as the potential for long term damage doesn’t exist. Decalcification is the only concern, and that effect is immediate and can only go as far volume used. Break a few eggs to make an omellete. This is intended only for the most dire of bloody skulls when the choice may be extensive peroxide exposure resulting in damage or this potential product. The damage with peroxide would occur to the collagen, which may take longer to observe.

After extensive discussions about value to customers, we have decided it is best to change the volume of powder offered from 1 kg to 1.5 kg, while only increasing price by 15 dollars Canadian. That is a 50% increase in product at a 42% price increase. It also means that shipping costs are more efficient without being able to change them. Let us know what you think about that.

We also have seen many people wanting to sample the product, or using the 1kg size as a “sample” size. We are far along in investigating introducing a sample pack, which would include both current products. This would be limited to just 30 grams of powder for strict shipping reasons, and a not yet decided volume of the spot degreaser. We would like feedback about this idea as well.

November 1, 2025

After months of testing, selling out once and restocking due to popular demand, I have heard enough feedback about the spot degreaser. The spot degreaser graduates beta test with no problems in beta test and users asking to include it as a regular product. This comes with a price adjustment.

I was surprised by the weird and wonderful ways people decided to use it. Everyone reported success, with one comment about grease stains possibly being deep in the bone. This could be remedied with longer times and slightly more soak times with the product. Bone tends to wick liquids laterally. This means more of the product will need to be used for deeper issues.

Much like the original degreaser, we aren’t aware of the full potential. For example, one user of the original degreaser just reported cleaning 300 furbearer skulls in one 10kg pail after dropping his dose to just 40g per 5 gallons. That is around $1.23 per skull after including tax and shipping. I suspect as more people get their hands on the spot degreaser, I’ll hear more interesting and fantastic stories about it, too.

As many of you know, at Bare Bones we don’t sit on our hands while beta tests are being conducted by our users. We are always working on new products, new ideas, and ways to help you push your skulls out faster or better. Here are some of them:

-Ally, our consulting biochemist, has submitted a protocol for extracting lipase that Tobi, our lab manager, will be testing this week. This is significant because usually when you find a lipase commercially, it comes with pronase, protease, amylase and other enzymes that might harm collagen during degreasing. Pure lipase will only attack fats. We are hoping to get ours from kitchen waste.

-Testing has occurred with a silent partner to remove metal stains from skulls with success. We have a few paths forward there that are really promising. We have used some really easy to get, easy to handle stuff. One of the substances you can even find in the supplement aisle!

-We have half a dozen ways to chemically raise the temperature we can degrease at, we are just looking at ways to confirm that damage has not been done. These are almost certainly going to work, as they have worked on collagen before in multiple ways, we just want a way to check it without waiting years. We have been working with biochemists, biophysicists, and Ally has been working very hard to make this happen.

Reach out if you have questions, comments, collabs or just to chat.

September 24, 2025

                While I was probably right about ways to prevent solubized wax from precipitating out of solution, it seems that when wax forms it is likely from bacterial mats on the bone. The saturated fatty acids are coming from the metabolic processes of bacteria, and these are likely digesting fats or other organics. As a result, the anti-wax measures in solution likely won’t work as is in any meaningful way. Anti-bacterial measures or adding solvents to the solutions may prove fruitful. In testing, both the presence of the solvent in the degreaser and the spot degreaser hit the wax sufficiently hard, and likely suppressed formation except in cases where excessive bacterial growth occurred in ostrich limb bones.

                The spot degreaser beta test is going well, but there is a lack of data right now. This is because the powder continues to perform well, and doesn’t leave many instances of discrete spots that need treatment. Data will come, but more time is needed.

                More products are in the works, stay tuned!

August 23, 2025

It has been a few months since an update. Things have been busy!

We now have a product manager, and have been focusing heavily on the backend business side of things. This has resulted in:

                -The ability to sell on our webhost platform

                -A functional store

                -New partnerships and options to accelerate the product

                -1KG sized packages

This was not without a cost. In Tobi’s absence, research ground to a near halt as focus shifted on overhauling the business to meet demand. Tobi is back now, and will soon be finished the last short field course in her degree. Various research targets are being set as soon as that course is finished. We will be upgrading our degreasing set ups as well.

As you can probably tell, the website isn’t yet finished, but we are almost there!

June 22, 2025

Grave wax is frustrating for a lot of people who work with bone. Lifting up the hood on how it forms has given me a few ideas how to deal with it. The short story of how it is formed is that saturated fatty acids, three in particular (myristic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid), stabilize fats. These crystalize in place, or come out of solution with a temperature drop or maybe when they are feeling particularly obnoxious. There are three ways we can deal with it. Two of these involve dealing with the bacteria directly, one of them involves preventing the wax from depositing. Dealing with the bacteria may be unfavorable because some maceration should probably continue to handle non-fatty marrow through the process. Therefore, handling the wax deposition itself is possibly the way to go.

Canid skulls were chosen for their proclivity for growing adipocire during degreasing. Two different wax countermeasures were deployed, and they were degreased at the same temperature in Bare Bones Solutions. One skull can be seen to the right, the other below. Shown is the totality of wax. A light sprinkling on the basioccipital of one specimen, and some on a single part of the alveolar bone and the occipital condyles on the other. I’m adding it to every skull that is degreasing, if it remains consistent that wax is mitigated, it seems like there is a winner.

Chemically, one may have a shot at chelating bone, the other doesn’t really have a chance at damaging bone. (Chelating is where an acid and a metal join together to make a salt. Calcium is a metal technically, so in this case it would chelate or steal the calcium from the bone to make a calcium salt). They are added at 1 part per million, so it is very unlikely any real damage is felt even if there is potential. To put that into perspective, that is 0.9 ml per 5 gallons of water.

June 15, 2025

The awaited spot degreaser beta test will begin late June or early July. This degreaser is based off results from d-Limonene, and a successful alpha test. Pricing will be somewhere around $40 Canadian plus shipping for one liter plus shipping and tax. There are still things to work out, so there are probably a few bumps along the road. If you would like to get your hands on it, please reach out via Instagram, Facebook or the contact form in this site. As usual, Canadians only for now.

Soak approximately 10ml of undiluted solution into greasy bone. Let it sit for several hours, then degrease in Bare Bones Solutions degreaser or warm water for several hours or days. Repeat as necessary. I am not quite sure the ideal set up yet for this. As beta testers, you’ll have to play around with it.

Pictured are two martens. Both are beetle cleaned. One has had the beetle poop washed off. The other has been soaked in the spot degreaser three times and degreased three times for a total of less than 48 hours. Cleaning an entire skull was never the plan for this stuff, but as usual I have done some pretty fun stuff with it.

d-Limonene (limonene) is a non-polar solvent that can be bought for about the same price as acetone, if you look hard enough. It’s showing some good promise as a spot degreaser on bone, or a brute force degreaser on stubborn grease in bone. What is limonene, what makes it worth considering adding to your degreasing arsenal and what are the drawbacks?

To the right are photos of sheep bones before and after being dunked in 100% limonene. These were done by collaborator Carissa. Limonene was brushed on these bones liberally after refusing to degrease any other way. The bones were then soaked in soapy water at 46 degrees Celsius. Below, we have a stubborn spot on an otter skull. After brushing a few milliliters of limonene on the offending spot and letting it soak into the bone, then putting it back in the degreaser as normal (43 degrees Celsius in Bare Bones Solutions degreaser) there was considerable improvement. The limonene is still drying in the middle picture, which was taken just a day later. The right picture is two days later.

Compare it to acetone, because it is about the same price point. It does work on triglycerides. That makes sense, because “like dissolves like” and it’s non-polar, and so are triglycerides. Hypothetically, it may work better than acetone, which only has low polarity, and appears to in limited testing. It has a much lower vapor pressure than acetone, which means it doesn’t evaporate rapidly. In fact, it takes days to evaporate out of a skull. This means you lose much less of it from every day use, but with the downside of taking longer to go anywhere when you need it to.

It is eco-friendly, and more health-friendly than many of the organic solvents out there because it is derived from citrus. It has a strong citrus smell which some describe as pleasant. It is less flammable than acetone. Despite this, exercise caution and proper safety when handling it, read the SDS, follow the label, and don’t mix it with anything. Chemically, there is no reason to think it will damage bone.

There are some downsides. It takes a while to evaporate out from your skull. It is immiscible in water, which means it separates out and floats to the surface, unless you have some hard-core emulsification (and even then, it’s a hard mix). As it evaporates, it may redeposit the fats, so it might be necessary to submerge it in warm, soapy water to encourage it and its greasy payload out of the bone. The cost and difficulty to source makes careful use a requirement.

Grave wax proliferation may be manageable. We have a hypothesis, as well as one proof of concept skull done. This is still very early, therefore there is lots of work yet to be done before something tangible occurs. If you want to help us test, get in touch with me. This skull was left in yeast for an excessive 3 days, and (likely) Serratia marcescens bacteria turned it red, then loosened the joints. It was degreased afterwards using Bare Bones. What matters at this stage is amount of grave wax compared to other coyotes, nothing else.

Grave wax (adipocere) may be partly caused indirectly by sugars in the bone marrow. In Carnivora, it is commonly observed that dogs and bears produce more adipocere. Bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) has insulin resistances (Pham et al, 2020 and Suchaki et al, 2020), resulting in a different glucose environment in the bone and even between different bones (Suchaki et al, 2020). Different diets impact the kinds of marrow being laid down inside of bone (Styner et al, 2014). Bears seasonally put on a huge amount of weight, which is consistent with increased BMAT.

Bacteria have enzymes that synthesize fatty acids, in particular stearic and palmitic acids, which stabilize triglycerides (animal fats) into adipocere (Takatori, 2001). Introduction of an anti-bacterial to the degreasing solutions may provide an obvious, but inadequate resolution. Some amount of maceration should continue throughout proper degreasing, aiding in the breakdown of the non-lipid elements of marrow, rendering anti-bacterials unideal.

Bacteria commonly target glucose as a food source. Throttling bacterial growth by eliminating excess glucose may work. Glucose is hard to break down except with heat and enzymes. Enzymes may be expensive or hard to manage and obtain, and heat will damage collagen. The simplest way to handle glucose could be a round of yeast treatment between maceration and degreasing.

Bread yeast is available, cheap and works fast. It generates heat, the upper limit being dangerous to collagen. It may only take a few hours to eliminate glucose within the skull. A by-product is ethanol, which is a solvent of animal fats. One proof of concept skull has been produced so far that appears to have less adipocere compared to other coyote skulls.

References

Pham, T. T., Ivaska, K.K., Hannukainen, J.C., Virtanen, K.A., Lidell, M.E., Enerback, S., Makela, K., Parkkola, R., Piirola, S., Oikonen, V., Nuutila, P., and Riku Kirviranata. (2020). Human bone marrow adipose tissue is a metabolically active and insulin-sensitive distinct fat deposit. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 105(7), 2300-2310. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgaa216

Styner, M., Thompson, W.R, Galior, K., Uzer, G., Wu, X., Kadari, S., Case, N., Xie, Z., Sen, B., Romaine, A., Pagnotti, G., Rubin, C.T., Styner, M.A., Horowitz, M.C. and Rubin, J. (2014). Bone marrow fat accumulation accelerated by high fat diet is suppressed by exercise. Bone. 64, 39-46. doi: 10.1016/j.bone.2014.03.044

Suchacki, K.J., Tavares, A.A.S., Mattiucci, D., Scheller, E.L., Papanastasiou, G., Gray, G., Sinton, M.C., Ramage, L.E., McDougald, W.A., Lovdel, A., Sulston, R.J., Thomas, B.J., Nicholson, B.M., Drake, A.J., Alcaide-Corral, C.J., Said, D., Poloni, A., Cinti, S., Macpherson, G.J., Dweck, M.R., Andrews, J.P.M., Williams, M.C., Wallace, R.J., van Beek, E.J.R., MacDougald, O.A., Morton, N.M., Stimson, R.H. and Cawthorn, W.P. (2020). Bone marrow adipose tissue is a unique adipose subtype with distinct roles in glucose homeostasis. Nature Communications. 11(3097). doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16878-2

Takatori, T. (2001). The mechanism of human adipocere formation. Legal Medicine (Tokyo). 3(4) 193-204. doi: 10.1016/s1344-6223(01)00036-0