Magical Oils 2 - Ingredients and Blending

Welcome back to the second instalment of my little series on oils in magic – last time we discussed the theory and history, lets get past that though and start talking about how to actually make magical oils.

We will talk first about carrier or base oils, then the traditional methods used to infuse them with scent and spirit, and essential oils and their uses in a blend. We will then move on to some basic fragrance theory and finally some advice on designing your own oil blends.

The final instalment, which I’ll try and get out in less than three months (ahem) will talk about ways to charge and use these oils in your magic. So…lets go!

Safety first!

I’ll start again with a safety caveat – all essential oils should be used with caution. They are highly concentrated substances – potent for magic but also potent in their physicality. Some can burn the skin, others seem fine but are photosensitive and will only react with skin when exposed to sunlight. Allergies are very common and can be difficult to predict.

·       Do not take essential oils internally – regardless of what you might read on the internet these are not safe for consumption

·       Prolonged inhalation of some oils may cause headaches

·       Do not apply to the skin undiluted

·       Do not rub your eyes while working with essential oils

·       Keep away from pets – many oils are fatal to animals

·       If pregnant consult with your doctor before using

Carrier Oils:

As mentioned in the safety warning above, essential oils can be downright dangerous. I’d add that this danger can be both magical and physical. As such, before using essential oils in magic, and especially on the skin, it is best to dilute them in what is known as a carrier oil. So-called because it provides a safe vehicle for those potent substances to be used.

Carrier oils are all plant derived – and as such carry their own properties – both medicinal and magical. All carrier oils can be used alone in magic – like any natural substance (and I’d argue the unnatural too – I’m that kind of animist) they have a spirit that can be called upon.

However, I like making things, and I find steeped and blended oils contain a power all their own – the power of human involvement in a creative act. To make a magical oil really pop, it pays to make something yourself.

When making an oil the first thing I do is choose a carrier oil that fits the purpose. There are many different kinds, and I’ll only touch on a few of the most common here. Below is a handy little table.

I have listed longevity, ease of obtaining, magical correspondences and some suggested uses.

My very favourite for magic is olive oil – the classic really, though not without its drawbacks in that it does tend to spoil quite easily. It can be used for anything from blessing to baneful work. Sunflower oil is another favourite – as the name indicates it is powerfully solar – so I use it for anything would benefit from that kind of energy boost. Sunflower oil isn’t all positivity though, again it can be used for baneful work – think the excoriating heat of the desert and the famine that comes with it – the sun can be fearsome.

One that I tend to use only for more negative works, or for aggressive protection, is castor oil, a powerful ally to the witch. This is a thick, sticky, unpleasant tasting oil, not something you would really want to use for a perfume oil, but this sticky nature in a sympathetic magic sense, helps your work stick to its target. Perfect for magic that needs to hang around a bit – like influencing someone stubborn or anointing household wards.

Another favourite, more for its longevity than anything, is jojoba oil. Despite the name this is not actually an oil, but really a liquid wax. You can do almost anything to it without it spoiling, so it is a great option if you are making a large batch of something or making oils for sale. For this reason it was the favourite of reknowned magical herbalist Scott Cunningham, whose books taught me almost everything I know about this topic.

TIP - fruit oils and seed oils bring slightly different qualities to your work. Seed oils like sunflower oil represent what a seed represents – potentiality, I think or it as New Moon or Tarot Aces – that first thrust of a new idea. Fruit oils like olive oil are potentiality reached – the Full Moon or the Tens of the tarot.

A final quick safety point – nut oils will trigger nut allergies. I tend to avoid them, I am not allergic myself but I wear my oils and as I pass through the world I don’t want to leave traces of nut oils where someone with a nut allergy might come into contact with them.

Infusing oils:

Magical oils can be infused with a variety of materia – and I’ll go over each in turn below. Feel free to use any combination in your oil making process, there are guidelines here, but no rules.

This process needs patience, as it can take some weeks – I usually steep things for a minimum of a lunar month. If you are in a rush you can speed this process up using heat, either a Bain Marie type arrangement on the stove or placing the jar of oil into water in a slow cooker on low heat with the lid on top but upturned. I find this can take the process down to 6-8 hours in an emergency. Do not keep the lid on the jar or you might have a nasty, explosive surprise…

TIP: With all the different kinds of materia listed, you can work the steeping process around your preferred method of magical timing. I tend to take both the moon phase and planetary days and hours into account both for gathering ingredients and for assembling and bottling the oils. For example if you are making an oil for prosperity you might pick or purchase your ingredients during Jupiter hour on a Thursday under a New or waxing moon, ideally in the morning, and assemble again in a later Jupiter hour. Choosing a similarly auspicious time to strain and bottle the oil for use.

I am no astrologer, but I do take major planetary activities into consideration also – with ancestor oils being made during Mercury Retrograde (for me at least, Hermes visiting the Underworld increases the ability to speak with the dead) or oil for baneful work being made around eclipses or on the dark moon.

Fresh herbs:

Steeping or macerating is a term typically used to describe allowing fresh herbs to sit in oil for a period of time in order to allow their scent to transfer from the plant material into the oil. This method is particularly suited to flowers, rather than herbs, as they are more delicate and often less strongly scented and tend to lose that scent when dried.

The risk is that by using fresh herbs, you are transferring quite a lot of water into your oil, and increasing the likelihood of that oil going bad. So I would recommend ever so slightly wilting any fresh materia you are using before maceration begins.

When gathering fresh plant material I would encourage you to avoid supermarket or florist flowers. These are so often treated with pesticides or preservative. Instead it pays to gather your own, and even for witches without a garden there is a surprising amount of useful flora to be found in even the most urban landscape. Do make sure you pick any plants with consent and intent however – an earlier post on this blog goes into that in depth.

Dried herbs:

Steeping dried herbs is infinitely less risky – as the low moisture content means your concoction is less likely to spoil. Herbs tend to be more strongly scented than flowers and steep well, especially if you bruise them first, woods and resins also impart their odour into oils well. This is the method used in the Ancient World to create famous perfumes such as the Mendesian and Metopian as worn by Cleopatra. Anything you can burn as an incense works well in oil making – just make sure you grind the items up fairly finely to get the maximum surface area and maximum scent.

Other materia:

This isn’t just about scent however – yes, with plant material that is a great bonus, but you are really trying to access the energy or spirit of the plant rather than just the scent – and everything has an energy / spirit. I love using ethically sourced bones and other animal materia like snail shells (protection), shed cat claws (attack and defence) or earth and stones from magically potent locations linked with the type of magic I am working.

Essential Oils:

Essential oils as so called because they contain the ‘essence’ of the plant distilled to it’s greatest concentration - well almost – an absolute is even stronger but these can be prohibitively expensive!  You can view this concentrated oil as containing the ‘soul’ of the plant. 

Most essential oils are extracted by steam distillation or expression (cold pressing).  Some oils are solvent extracted – in general I try and avoid these for magical purposes as they do retain a trace of the solvent. 

It is best to use genuine oils in magic as it is that plant soul we want to access, and while an artificial scent might smell exactly like the plant you want to use, it doesn’t contain that ‘soul’ element.  In fact, there are a lot of fakes out there masquerading as the genuine product.  The easiest way to be sure you have a genuine product is to buy oils from a quality source – being in the UK I prefer Star Child as a trusted supplier.  If you think you may have purchased a fake oil, there is a simple test Amy Blackthorn outlines in her recent book on Magical Oils:  add a drop of the oil to a glass of water.  If a film forms on top of the water this may be an essential oil already diluted in a base oil, if the water goes cloudy, it may be diluted in water.

Below is a table of some of the essential oils I use most commonly in my magic along with some correspondences and some details about their scent profile – which we will come back to later.  

Dilution:

As mentioned above, essential oils must be diluted for use as many of them can burn the skin or at the very least cause photosensitivity.  There are different dilution recommendations for different purposes – for magical oils I tend toward a 5% as these oils are often worn on the skin during ritual.

The easiest way to work out the percentage is to make your base oil in multiples of 10ml, so for a 5% oil you will add 10 drops of essential oil to 10ml of base oil.

Fragrance Theory:

In the essential oils table above I mentioned scent profiles and notes – so lets get into that here.  I’m not a perfumer, so my explanation will be very basic – but I find this a great way to enhance / turbo charge magical oils.

Typically scents are listed as floral, citrus, herbal, woody, musky or spicy.  This is pretty easy to grasp and I’m not going to explain this to you. But where it gets a little more complex is the concept of ‘notes’ – a note in fragrance speak is a layer of scent and notes are typically listed as top, middle and base.  Any good perfume will be made up of a mix of these, making a unique and multilayered scent.  This knowledge can be used in magical oil making too, and is especially useful when planning spell work.

Top notes are the first scent you will pick up any blended perfume – these are typically light, fresh and sharp – so things like lighter herbs, pine, citrus and mint.  These top notes dominate a fragrance for the first 5-15 minutes after application to the skin and the top notes typically make up 20% to 40% of a fragrance.  Coming in quick and fast, they are great for any magic where time is of the essence.  Useful top note oils are Bergamot, Orange and Mint.

Middle notes are just that – right in the middle – they make up the heart of the fragrance and are typically herbal or floral.  They usually last 15-60 minutes, and make up 50-75% of a France formula.  These are balanced scents – good for magic that needs to be steady and stable.  Useful Middle note oils are Clary Sage, Lavender and Rosemary.

Base notes are the foundation the scent is built on, these are the long lasting big hitters – woods, musks, resinous and spicy.  They typically linger for around six hours and usually make up 5-15% of a formula – though my personal taste leans toward more base heavy formulas.  They are wonderful for slow magic – creating deep and long lasting change rather than something quick.  Typical base notes would be Frankincense, Myrrh and Cedar.

We can leverage this knowledge when doing our magic – so spells for change might be more top note heavy while those for stability more base note heavy. 

To illustrate this - lets say one were using a single oil for financial magic – you might choose to use just Mint to bring in a quick buck, just Bay to bring in a regular income or Oakmoss, a base note, to aid with starting a business on a solid foundation.  Or you might blend all three together in the ratio below to harness a full spectrum of wealth building power!

2 drops Mint

6 drops Bay

2 drops Oakmoss

Tip – while we are talking about blending fragrances it is importation to mention that oil magic is not all about creating a pleasant scent.  Something does not have to smell good in order to be magically effective, and in fact we might sometimes really want something that smells bad.  Abrasive magic can be enhanced with abrasive scents, just as beautiful magic can be enhanced by beautiful scents.  A good way to ruin most harmonious scents deliberately is to add a drop or two of spearmint to the mix.

Storage:

Once you have blended your oil and diluted it in a carrier oil you need to make sure it is stored properly – you can add a drop of vitamin E to the mix to boost longevity or you can make a benzoin tincture (powered Benzoin steeped in vodka for three weeks).  Try to store oils in dark glass bottles – and if you won’t be using your oil often, you can refrigerate or freeze it.

Awaken Everything:

Before every stage of the oil making process -from steeping to blending to bottling – do not forget to awaken your ingredients.  You do this by holding them and talking to them – telling them their job.  Make sure you do this with each item you add to your steep, with your carrier oil and with each essential oil.  Again, once the blend is made, you’ll want to activate that blended oil – and we will talk about ideas for that in my next post.

Next time

In my next post – which will not be months away I promise, we will cover activating oils, ways to use them in your magic, a full recipe design process and a few other hints and tips for really making something that packs a magical punch.