How to clean a sea urchin test?

[useastcoastcollector]

Thank you for your response, Paul. I will try these techniques. I was aware there is a tissue holding the spines onto the test, but I didn't realize the tissue was also holding the test itself together. Thank you for that! I would have most definitely ended up with a jigsaw puzzle on my hands! I will practice these steps on a less desirable specimen first, before I risk ruining my good ones. I noticed ever since I've collected the specimens that it sort of has a brownish tint on both the test and spines overall. Many tests I find on the beach are white and purple. Is there any way to remove the unappealing brown color and keep the white/purple color?

P.S. I've noticed that fire ants and pill bugs (or what we call roly-polys) work really well at cleaning off any remains of the animal.