The skein algebra of an oriented surface is spanned by framed links in the thickened surface subject to the Kauffman bracket relations. Multiplication of links is given by stacking in the direction of the thickening. We will discuss special skein identities which hold when the quantum parameter $q$ is specialized to a root of unity. The identities involve Jones-Wenzl projectors and are certain incarnations of special cases of Steinberg tensor product identities from the representation theory of $U_q(sl_2).$ We will discuss how the easiest such identity can be used to recover the Chebyshev-Frobenius homomorphism of Bonahon-Wong. This is joint work with Indraneel Tambe.