Skunk Shampoo Recipe

Pet size: any size pet washing time: 3 to 5 minutes

Has your pet have a run-in with a skunk?

1 pint hydrogen peroxide
2/3 cup baking soda
1 tablespoon liquid dawn dish soap

Mix skunk shampoo up at the time of use (skunk shampoo will not work if not made fresh). Sponge skunk shampoo on your dog or cat. Let skunk shampoo set three to five minutes, rinse with plain warm water. If a second dose is needed mix a new batch of skunk shampoo from scratch. The skunk shampoo reacts with the mercaptans (smelly chemicals in the skunk spray) and oxidizes them. If the shunk shampoo is not fresh, the reaction will not work.

There's nothing like a peaceful summer evening. The sound of crickets and frogs in the air, a gentle breeze to cool off the days heat and oh-oh.

Megan jumps in your lap with the distinctive fragrance of Eau de Skunk. It's the season and those little striped ones show no mercy. Most commonly the run-ins are at night, but they can happen in the daytime also.

There are several common remedies that you can put together at home with varying degrees of success. A tomato juice rinse will help a bit if you can't get the other ingredients right away. Better than tomato juice is rinsing in liquid or reconstituted Masengill. Selsun Blue shampoo also helps.

The best of all is easily made at home from common ingredients found in your house. There are two recipes. The recipe with the smaller ratio of peroxide would be preferable for dogs whose coat color may be affected adversely by the peroxide.

Recipe #2

1 pint hydrogen peroxide
2/3 cup baking soda
1 tablespoon liquid dawn dish soap

Mix skunk shampoo up at the time of use. Sponge on cat or dog. Let sit three to five minutes then rinse with plain warm water. If a second dose is needed mix a new batch from scratch. The skunk shampoo reacts with the mercaptans (smelly chemicals in the skunk spray) and oxidizes them. If the skunk shampoo is not fresh, the reaction will not work.

A little background on the hydrogen peroxide mix:

The mix described was developed to remove mercaptans employed in industry and as military weapons. If you can't see them coming, at least you can smell them. Tomato juice, Masengill shampoo and Selsun Blue shampoo work because they tend to cut the oil base of the skunk spray but they do not really "kill" the skunk odor. They just strip off the bulk of it. Skunk oil is meant to be persistent. A lasting memory of your encounter with the stripped kitty. Once it gets a grip just washing away the oil does not remove the smell, just reduces it.

Clothing can also be washed in the mix to remove the
"skunk perfume."
As a point of interest, do you know what natural gas smells like? Like nothing, so methyl mercaptan is added to give it its well recognized warning property odor. Skunks don't need any help, their mercaptan compounds come built in.