Blacker than black. Bone black.
When Ebonex got its start, the Civil War was barely over, buffalo still roamed the western plains and Ulysses S. Grant was president. One of Detroit's oldest companies - and in 1892, its largest - still does essentially what it did in the 1870s: turns charred bones into ash and a fine black powder used in inks, stains, paints and cosmetics.
These days, family-owned Ebonex is the only maker of bone black pigment in the world, distributed on five continents. It’s the deepest black possible and an organic product nontoxic enough to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Rembrandt Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, uses matte black ink with Ebonex’s pigment to print high-quality lithographs, company president Shelly Toenniges discovered last summer when she toured the museum. At the end of a quiet residential street in Melvindale, six employees turn already-charred cow bones imported from Pakistan, Nigeria and Libya into their signature product, Cosmic Black, which is the texture of baby powder. Exactly how they do it is a secret, since other companies have tried to imitate them.
“It is more art than science,” said Jeff Booms, 29, plant manager, who mixes the ground black powder into different grades. Booms said he learned the tricks from his grandfather, Michael Szczepanik, 74, who got his first job at Ebonex at 18 and retired as its owner a few years ago. Toenniges, 51, is his daughter. When the firm’s predecessor, Michigan Carbon Works, started in 1873, the bones came from buffalo slaughtered on the plains. Its complex on 72 acres in Detroit’s Delray neighborhood was known as Boneville and included 28 cottages on Carbon Street for workers to live in. By 1892, it was the city’s largest business, employing more than 750 people.
The use of Ebonex’s bone black has shifted over time.
One of its newer uses is as an ingredient in Hollywood explosions. Mixed with oil, the powder makes a convincing fiery conflagration on-screen. The yet-unreleased remakes of movies “Red Dawn” and “Green Lantern” used it, as did the producers of the 2005 war film “Jarhead.”
The powder is so fine it’s tough to get off a person’s hands. That makes it one of the filthiest workplaces in America, says “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe, who filmed his Discovery Channel show at Ebonex in summer 2009. The episode aired last February and repeats continue. Rowe said it was one of his two dirtiest jobs ever.
The job requires a sense of humor, Booms said. “We always ask people, ‘Can you get dirty and can you take a joke?’ ”
The family company’s product is an early indicator of the health of the economy.
“We get hit first because what our business depends on is consumer whims,” Toenniges said. After a drop of 25% during the recession, Ebonex’s sales are now rebounding.
“I hope we’ll be here another 100 years,” she said.
© 2010 Detroit Free Press.