Bay Rum (Stop Putting Bay Laurel in It!)

Forget all those nasty, medicinal aftershaves: a good bay rum is spicy, herbal, and refreshing. This is on my "classic male scents" list, along with Creed Green Irish Tweed, Creed Silver Mountain Water, and 4711/other eau de colognes. When your grandpop came home from from the barbershop, he probably smelled like either bay rum or EDC.

The "bay" in bay rum does not refer to bay laurel, so you can ignore all the ridiculous recipes you'll find online calling for bay leaves as an ingredient. Instead it refers to Jamaican bayberry (allspice). Also, you can't substitute allspice berries for allspice leaves. It really is better and cheaper to just buy a bottle of the real deal rather than to whip up a batch of boozy spices from a fake recipe. Although, if anyone were to procure the proper ingredients and mix me up a batch made with Sailor Jerry.... oooh.

Bay rum is used for cleansing and healing. You can cleanse candles and workspaces with it, add it to baths, add it to washes/scrubs. Roots and herbs are sometimes soaked in it to make special formulas. Sometimes for healing it is rubbed on the body, downwards from head to toe, to cleanse away and pull the illness off the person. For example: To draw out a fever, mix it with cool/ice water and rub the person downwards with a clean rag while praying. Repeat every so often until the fever breaks.*

If you mostly use Florida Water to cleanse, consider switching to bay rum. It's, at least in my experience, more traditional to conjure, and the prices are stable. Florida Water keeps getting more and more expensive for no good reason. Well, I think I know why. "Hoodoo" has been a fad (ugh) for the past few years, and all the internet crowd wants is Florida Water. I mean, I got turned onto Florida Water too, it smells nice and it used to be cheap. But I refuse to pay $7-$14 per bottle when I can get bay rum for $3-$7.

The easiest brands to locate in brick and mortar stores are Superior 70 and Clubman Virgin Island Bay Rum. Burt's Bees used to make a good one, but I'm pretty sure it's discontinued. Try pharmacies (especially Walgreens), Dollar General, and Sally Beauty Supply.

Don't let the light shade fool you, it's pretty good.

*all my standard disclaimers apply... healing should always be a partnership with your medical doctor

4711 - The Original Eau De Cologne

I must confess: I am OBSESSED with perfumes and perfumery. Scent is our strongest memory and emotional trigger. Whenever I'm not feeling well, I dig into my perfume collection for something to perk me up. (Right now I've got the flu, but I'm awash in Chanel no. 5) Andy Warhol once said that perfume is a way to take up more space, and indeed, various spirits are associated with filling rooms with unexplainable scents. Since Andy Warhol loved perfume so much, he requested to be buried with a bottle of Estee Lauder's Beautiful... I imagine that's what his spirit would smell like. Anyway, the point is, perfume is special.

4711 has such a wonderful, nostalgic scent. Produced in Cologne, Germany for over 200 years, this is the original echt kölnisch wasser. 4711 is responsible for "cologne" becoming a generic term in perfumery. Hoyt's and Florida Water are less-expensive stateside interpretations of this fragrance, to give you an idea of the scent. Several members of my family have owned this, it's such a classic. When I think of conjure perfume, this is the first one to jump to my mind, followed by Hoyt's, and then Bay Rum. Florida Water is honestly at the bottom of the list. Like I've said before, FW is something I picked up later in life.

4711 is used just like Hoyt's. You can wear it for luck (especially gambling), anoint hands/mojos with it, add it to baths/washes/scrub water, soak herbs/roots in it (such as High John) to make special formulations.

 I once read that Pete Townshend used to snort 4711. I think that's fabulous.

If you can get your hands on a vintage bottle (pre-1980's) the scent is superior, but the new formula is still pretty good. Though not traditionally used in conjure, Roger&Gallet's Farina Eau de Cologne is closer to the original smell. In the "Most Expensive" category is Chanel's Eau de Cologne, which outlasts any other cologne I've tried. Guerlain's Eau de Cologne Imperiale is another classic cologne you can check out. (I only list all these for any die-hard cologne fans)

If you love 4711, they've been putting out several variations of it in recent years with their Acqua Colonia line:

Tragedy! (Edit: Now With Audio Aid)

Today we mourn the loss of my beloved, authentic van van oil. I have no idea how the bottle got this strange hole in it :( Just this morning I had an idea to dilute it to stretch it out a bit until I could buy some verbena and the other herbs and oils needed to make my own. This was purchased from a spiritual shop which is no longer in business, so I can't get another. The smell was just transcendent, I will be devastated if I can never match it.

There's something I'd like to educate everyone about. Ok, Van Van is so named because the Creole pronunciation of vervain (verbena) sounds like "veah vahn"†, and this was eventually corrupted into "van van". Some people know this, some don't. It baffles me why the people who know this don't put vervain into their formulas... it's the name of the damn oil! Even the people who fancy themselves grand high masters of hoodoo (yeah, el oh el) leave it out.

Now, some forward-thinking merchants have realised that you can't have Van Van without the van van, and have attempted to fix this. The problem is, every. single. one of them, that I've seen, uses lemon verbena. Lemon verbena is a completely different plant. I guess I can see the logic, if the formula has lemongrass, it must also call for lemon verbena. Lemon verbena was also very popular in turn of the century perfumery. However, it was expensive and rootworkers weren't working with perfume compounds, they were working with mostly wildcrafted and culinary plants.

Lemon verbena wipes your slate clean and sweetly attracts new things to you, especially in matters of love. Bees and butterflies absolutely love this plant! There is a lot of misinformation about lemon verbena going around, with people thinking it's a crossing herb due to a certain person with a big following misinterpreting the mechanics of a break-up job. But I guess that's what happens when you shamelessly plagiarize and try to pass yourself off as a real conjure worker. (Oh, I should stop.) Anyway, lemon verbena is best used situationally. Some things just cleanse so strongly that they pull everything off.

Verbena, on the other hand, has quite a long history of magical and spiritual use. There's the famous True Love Powder*. It was said to have been used to dress Jesus' wounds. It has been used to protect against vampires, witches, ghosts, and other evil creatures. It's mainly used for love-drawing and protection from evil and jinxing. Unlike lemon verbena, verbena is great to use on a continuous basis.

 A good Van Van recipe should look like this (sorry, I never measure, but remember that ingredients are always listed in order of quantity, greatest to least)
-Verbena
-Lemongrass
-Citronella grass (NOT the leafy plant sold as "citronella")
-Palmarosa
-Vetivert

You can use only herbs, but it's difficult to find citronella grass and even more difficult to find palmarosa. At least incorporate as many herbs as you can. You can get everything you need very cheaply from PennHerb and Edens Garden. I have not found undiluted essential oils at a better price than Edens Garden, I'm starting to build up a nice little collection. The Biblical Set (Frankincense, Myrrh, Spikenard) is wonderful, and a great money-saver to boot.

 †Edited to add: I remembered that Google Translate has a text to speech feature, so I checked to see if Louisiana Creole was on its language list. Sadly, no, but the word's pronunciation in Haitian Creole is nearly identical, give it a listen. LA Creole just has an almost inaudible "r".

*Earliest mention I remember seeing of the verbena-mistletoe-elecampane formula is H. U. Lampe's "Famous Voodoo Rituals & Spells", copyright 1974. MANY authors have plagiarized this great little book since its printing, including the certain person I mentioned above. ;)

White Florals

From top to bottom: Osmanthus, gardenia, orange blossom, jasmine, magnolia, white rose, tuberose.

"White floral", especially in the perfume industry, refers specifically to heavily perfumed white flowers. While they each have specialized uses, as a group they have a lot in common. While florals are associated with love, purity, fidelity, attraction, and marriage. Because of their purity, they can be added to any type of cleansing/uncrossing bath or oil.

Osmanthus- Because of it's fruity apricot tones, and the fact that it grows on an evergreen, I like to incorporate it in marriage and fertility works. Remember: fertility doesn't just mean physical female fertility, it can mean monetary fertility and, in this case, emotional fertility.

Gardenia- Ugh, I really need to plant myself some gardenia this spring! Gardenia is great for peace and bonding.

Orange blossom- The marriage flower. Because of it's associations with purity, it is used in wedding ceremonies to represent chastity and fidelity. Use for marriage, fidelity, and faithful love.

Jasmine- I've written about jasmine before. It's seductive, but not raunchy... though you can certainly make it very naughty just by combining it with a few things ;) It is also used for psychic work.

Magnolia- Magnolia in general is used for fidelity, and the blossoms are great for keeping the love strong even during hard times.

White Rose- The purest of pure. Because roses have thorns, which repel evil, white rose is an ingredient in many uncrossing formulas. White roses are also protective and they represent pure love.

Tuberose- Velvety and sensual, tuberose draws attention in a physical way, you know where you suddenly just really want to touch someone's arm or brush their hair back. Great for when you want physical affection.


If you are a fan of white florals, I cannot recommend enough one of my favorite perfumes of all time, Fracas by Robert Piguet

EDIT: Fracas has a bit of a cult following and it's been worn by many awesome ladies. Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Edie Sedgewick, Courtney Love, Madonna, Sophia Coppola, Dita Von Teese, and Iman are just the ones I can name off the top of my head!

I'm not sure how many newcomers know this, but you can work with your personal perfumes/colognes, you're not limited to Hoyt's/Florida Water/Jockey Club/whatever. You can pray over them for whatever it is you wish for them to do (look for ingredients that match up to your intent, of course). You can offer a spray or two of them in a glass of water to spirits. Even better if you can get scents your ancestors wore when they were alive. You can use them to feed hands/"mojos". The only thing I would caution is to look for fragrances made with real essential oils as opposed to synthetics.

Snow!

Snow is over the mid-Atlantic right now. We've already got 6-8" where I am, and we were only supposed to get about 3'! It's supposed to turn to freezing rain overnight, so if you're affected by this storm, be smart and safe.

A little snow conjure:
-Wash your face with the first snow of the year for beauty.
-Wash you hands/face/body with the first snow of the year to prevent dry, chapped winter skin.
-Collect the water from snow, it is, in my personal opinion, the BEST water to use in a hyssop bath because of the line in Psalm 51 "wash me, and I will be whiter than snow."
-Snow water is really great to use in any healing or purification bath or wash.
-Rain, snow, lightning... pretty much everything that comes from "Heaven" is powerful.

I'm predicting five more significant snows for where I am, with one of the biggest being in February.

Florida Water

When I first created this blog, I had decided that I didn't want to cover things that were already pretty well-covered elsewhere online. Now, though, I'm thinking that I still have things to contribute, so I might as well still cover them.

Florida Water is the name for a type of cologne that has been produced for over 200 years. There are and have been other brands, but Murray&Lanman's (formerly Lanman&Kemp) is the most ubiquitous. If you've ever smelled Hoyt's Cologne or 4711 (a true Eau de Cologne, which both this and Hoyt's are based on), Florida Water is similar but much lighter and less concentrated. If you like Hoyt's, 4711, Bay Rum, and other "old-timey" scents, you will love Florida Water.

Florida Water is used for purification and cleansing, spiritual work, and also drawing in good fortune. It's used in several ways. It can be used in baths and floor washes/scrub water or put in a spray bottle and misted about the home. It can be used to cleanse tools and work spaces between use. It can be used to cleanse candles (let dry before using!) and other store-bought things before you use them. It is frequently offered to ancestors and spirits and, if you work with them, saints and angels. It can be used to feed hands, packets, and also roots and bones and anything else you'd feed. It can also be worn as a personal scent. I know, "duh" on that last one, but I mean a magical scent. There is even a bar soap version of it.

I want to make something clear: not everyone uses it. I know it's traditional, especially in certain areas, but I personally never used the stuff until I lived in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood and was introduced to it. I've never seen anyone in my family use it either. I've known a few to own 4711, that's as close as it gets. Before, I'd always used whiskey, vodka, or even salt water to cleanse things, maybe a little incense smoke.

A few little tips: Florida Water is GREAT for mosquito bites, it numbs and soothes them (thanks to its clove and lavender oils) and helps them to heal. It also makes a great toner for oily or acne prone skin. To keep nice and cool in the summer, mix some into ice water and soak a rag in the mix to wipe yourself down and drape around your neck. This mix is also awesome for a migraine.

I have used Florida Water in healing work to great success. My boyfriend is diabetic and gets these little sores which don't heal for months, and when they do, they scar over. He has been to the doctor about them, and his doctor didn't know what they were but ruled out anything really serious, surmising that they must be, indeed, related to his diabetes. I asked him if, next time any cropped up, I could try to help heal them. Using Florida Water on them twice a day, along with prayer and power, I got them to heal up and leave with almost no scarring. He was shocked and amazed. He'd been using rubbing alcohol on them for a long time, so I know it wasn't just the alcohol content. Florida Water contains actual essential oils as opposed to synthetic fragrance, so there is real power in it.

Please take note: the above healing work did include a visit to a medical doctor. This is one example of using healing work in conjunction with medical doctors, which you should always do.