MAGICAL FRAGRANCES

Personal fragrance Magic

Throughout the ages the women of the household made flower waters and colognes, bath salts and infused floral oils to enhance their natural beauty and to attract love and good fortune. Often a family love, fertility or happiness recipe was handed on through the generations, with a secret ingredient or whispered words spoken as the scent was being prepared that made it unique.

In the modern busy world much folk wisdom has been lost from family life, especially since we may no longer have the herbs and flowers growing wild that were freely gathered from hedgerows or grown in cottage gardens.

But many of these old remedies are easily prepared in a short time and can form a focus for our own needs and dreams as we stir and mix the ingredients. We are also fortunate, if time is at a premium, to be able to buy natural herbal products to enchant it or empower with one of the rituals I suggest in this chapter.

Though your signature perfume is the most important single fragrance, more homely scents can bring health, happiness, harmony, love and prosperity to your everyday world.

You can use them in addition to your signature fragrance, but you can also substitute a specific infused oil, floral water or cologne, especially if a magical need is one that will take several days or weeks to fulfil, keeping your signature fragrance for special occasions or bursts of power.

Here we will work with traditional methods for personal enhancement with herb and flower waters and oils. You can also make magical fragrances for friends and family members as gifts and can record favourite recipes in your fragrance journal to hand on to future generations.

Making your own magical fragrances

Because I am not a craft orientated person and my time tends to be limited, my methods are very simple. However there are numerous books and Internet sites that show you how to make more complex mixes. The secret is not in how long it takes to create them, but the positive energies with which you endow them

You will need:

Large and small screw top dark and light medicine type bottles or storage jars with airtight lids. Old bath foam and essential oil bottles are useful, the latter often with dropper tops.

Plastic or glass filter funnels (explore cookware stores as well as pharmacists) for straining herbs and petals. You can use old fashioned muslin or cheesecloth for straining infused oils.

Eye droppers can be useful for transferring small quantities of oils and fragrances.

Use sticky labels so you can identify the fragrances you have made, the purpose and the date.

Flower petals and lavender heads can be obtained from plants you have grown in the garden or in pots or bought from garden centres; fresh herbs you can often obtain in supermarkets. The flowers or herbs will influence the nature of the powers with which the mixture is infused, for example rose for love, lilac for happiness and rosemary for concentration and good fortune as well as passion. You can make or indeed buy the precise combination of qualities you seek, for example more adding rosemary than rose in a rose and rosemary water to attract passionate rather than gentle romantic love to the wearer.

For some recipes you will need pure 100% proof vodka (a cheap one is fine) and for others a good quality cold pressed oil such as sweet almond, olive or jojoba.

Timings

Traditionally the preparation of infused oils is started at the time of the crescent moon. Beginning when the lunar energies are gently increasing gives the oils a power that grows as the fragrance slowly seeps into the oil, even if the mix goes over into a second month in its preparation.

For colognes or oil based perfumes that need a shorter time in preparation, make them when the moon and sun are right for the need. The waxing or increasing moon period which lasts approximately fourteen days from the crescent to the night of the full moon can be used for creating mixtures that are to be used to bring gradual increase in any way over a period of time. You can use a diary or the weather section in the paper to indicate the current moon phase.

The sun is also significant. Early morning as close to dawn as possible will also bring gentle increases in power to the mix.

To introduce change and fresh energies into your life, make your cologne or oil based perfume on the day of the full moon, at noon for the fusion of solar and lunar power energies

Finally if you wish to remove a negative self-image, the influence of a destructive relationship or bad habit, create your perfume during the period of the waning moon, from the day after the full moon until the end of the moon cycle when it disappears from the sky. Work at dusk or after dark so the darkness can absorb sorrow or pain.

Any mixes you have leave out on the eve of the Summer Solstice around June 21 (or from dawn if you are an early riser) until noon the next day will be filled with the joy and optimism of this most magical day of all.

Making empowered flower waters

Use fresh petals from a fragrant newly opened flower, choosing ones that are quite dry but not brown. Some recipes recommend bruising the petals first, but others (which I prefer) leave the petals intact. The leaves of fragrant herbs are also suitable, as are the flowers of the herbs, chamomile (riches, happiness, health and children) and the all purpose lavender (for gentle love, peace and healing). Lavender water is very good for helping children and adults facing bullying.

The best roses for fragrance work are Rosa centifolia, most common as the big pink cabbage rose and the dark red damask rose (Rosa damescena). But there are a number of other highly scented varieties. A visit to a garden centre or rose garden will give you the chance to identify the most fragrant as roses are one of the best flowers for making flower water and infused oil and will bring love, self esteem and healing into your world.

Rose Water

This is one of a number of similar recipes that has a mild delicate fragrance. It is good for any occasion when you need self love, self confidence and self esteem or seek to mend a quarrel. You can anoint yourself with it, sprinkle it on your pillow or underwear or carry a small bottle of the water with you to smell just before a confrontation or when there has been a quarrel or bad atmosphere.

Sprinkle a circle of rose water around yourself before going out if you feel under threat or know you are meeting difficult people. You can also use this and the other flower waters in your home for protection or as the Water component on your altar. You will also find it useful for spiritual exploration, for rituals and in healing.

This method will work with other scented petals and with fresh herbs, though herbs tend to be best mixed with flowers. Rose and rosemary is my favourite combination. The quantities and timings are ones that work for me, but the art is to experiment as you make new batches, so you get the right quantities for the strength and fragrance you like, Indeed the best flower waters I have made have been in a hurry when I have thrown everything shaken well and forgotten the bottle for a few days.

Keep notes of how you made your best batches

Take a medium sized glass jar or a wide necked bottle an airtight lid.

According to the size, use in proportion a cup of cold water, distilled is best, to about three quarters of a cup of rose petals.

Add sprigs of rosemary or peppermint to the rose petals if you wish for a tangier fragrance, but keep to the same proportions of flowers to water

Make sure the water covers the rose petals

Add also two or three drops of lavender or rose absolute essential oil or a single drop of myrrh to enhance the fragrance.

Finally stir in a tablespoon of vodka per cup of water.

When everything is in the jar, shake the mixture.

As you shake the flower water state as a chant the purpose of the water, for example:

`I empower this water with self-esteem, may I be filled with self-love, self confidence and inner radiance in my life. So enter beauty into me, as I count three, one two three, so may it be (shake mix three more times) three, two, one, (shake again three times), the mix is done.’

Make sure there is only a small gap above the top of the liquid to the top of the jar and that the jar is water tight.

Leave the mix for at least 12 hours if possible, though you can use it earlier if the need is urgent.

You can leave the flower water even longer for two or three days until the petals begin to brown. This makes a strong mixture.

I shake mine every few hours, repeating the chant but some people prefer to leave well alone.

The rose water is now ready to strain using a small funnel into a glass bottle with a stopper or screw top lid.

Discard the herbs and petals.

Keep your flower waters on your shelf or cupboard in your indoor fragrant place.

Light a pink rose candle and repeat the empowerment just before use, leaving the candle to burn through.

An alternative method for flower waters

This time you will need 2 cups of fresh flowers and two pints of distilled boiling water.

Put the flowers in a glass heatproof bowl and pour on the water, stirring the flowers with a non metallic spoon.

As you do so you can create an empowerment chant. For example if you were using lavender, that is good after any kind of setback, loss or betrayal, you might say as you stirred; Lavender of love, lavender of healing, heal my wounded heart and help me trust again’

Cover the bowl and leave the flowers to infuse the water, stirring every 6 or 8 hours and repeating the empowerment.

After about 48 hours remove the cover, strain the infusion into a wide–necked glass bottle through muslin, cheesecloth or a coffee filter and discard the flowers.

Stir two tablespoons of pure vodka into the bottle and shake it, repeating the empowerment, then lid or cork the bottle until needed

Empower flower waters or colognes you buy by shaking the bottle gently nine times while you recite a chant when you add it to your collection and again before each use.

Infused oils

These take longer to mature but are excellent for any long term goal and were the original form of Ancient Egyptian perfumes, containing no alcohol

When you have made or bought infused oils (which are more dilute than essential) oils you can add a few drops to your bath, use as massage oil (unlike essential oils they do not need diluting, but check on a small patch of skin you are not allergic to the oil). The longer you steep petals or herbs in an infusion, the more fragrant the oil.

I will again describe using rose petals, but you can use any fragrant flower or lavender heads. You can use also fresh herb sprigs.

Easy method

Three quarters fill a large water and air tight jar or wide- necked bottle with a lid with cold pressed olive oil.

Add rose petals so they are entirely covered with the oil, but not too tightly crammed.

You may need to add more oil and rose petals till the jar is almost full.

Seal the jar and shake it, empowering the oil with such words as: `Flower of beauty thus infuse, my life with joy, flower of light, so suffuse with loveliness my world, that I may know delight.’

Set the jar in a sunny place or one where there is bright daylight for a few hours at least. Summer is a good time for making infused oils.

Shake the jar each day for at least four weeks, repeating the empowerment.

When the oil becomes pink, strain the petals through muslin, squeezing them to let through every drop of oil into the jar.

Pour the infused oil into a dark glass bottle with a lid and then repeat the empowerment, holding the bottle of oil between your hands.

Keep the bottle in your indoor place until needed when you can recite the empowerment for the final time, lighting a purple candle and letting it burn through.

With infused oil as with flower water that is commercially made, empower it when you add it your collection and again before use, shaking it nine times reciting a chant.

A more complex method

For even more fragrant infused oil, prepare as above but do not shake the bottle.

Whenever the petals become brown, replace them with fresh petals, by straining them through muslin or cheesecloth being careful to squeeze as much oil as possible off the discarded petals.

You may need to do this a number of times if there is a lack of sunlight.

Leave the oil about six weeks until it is truly pink.

Empower when you first make the mix, whenever you change the petals and when the oil is ready (and again before use).

Making a perfumed unguent

You prefer to make a solid unguent so you can rub a very tiny quantity into your pulse points on your wrists or the psychic energy points in your palms or the soles of your feet to give you confidence or peace of mind.

This works especially well with marigold, chamomile, lavender and rose infused oils.

Marigold is protective against infidelity, helps in legal matters, increases luck, and money. Chamomile increases kindness of others towards you, brings a gradual inflow of money, affection, friendship and family unity. It is also very protective

Take half a litre (1 pint) of infused perfumed oil, heat it gently in a ceramic or Pyrex saucepan, but do not let it boil.

Add a tablespoon of cocoa butter and 50 grams (about 2 oz) of beeswax

As you stir repeat a very short chant slowly and mesmerically, for example: `Marigold, marigold bring me justice.’

When the butter and wax have melted remove the pan from the heat and mix with a wooden or ceramic spoon until the mixture is thick and creamy and has cooled.

Place the unguent in a small glass lidded pot or cover with waxed paper and repeat the chant while enchanting the pot before use.

Using fragrant oils for personal power

You will need to prepare in advance or buy four special flower or herb waters, one to represent each of the four directions and elements on your altar. If you are making your own mixes, you can use the method I have suggested above for flower waters or you can create a sweeter mix as suggested below, using essential oils. These sweet oils are also good for anointing yourself.

Making essential oil waters

Pour two cups of distilled water into a glass bowl and add two tablespoons of vodka. Then add drop by drop up to 20 drops of essential oil, according to the strength you require and the fragrance, for each drop naming a blessing or strength you seek and stirring the mixture between drops with a ceramic or glass spoon (not wood or metal).

Now using a small funnel transfer the mixture to small bottles, as you fill each, naming the fragrance and the purpose for which you made it, for example, `Juniper, juniper, fragrance of Fire, burn away what is destructive and painful and bring a new beginning for me.’

If you want to make these fragrances but are in a hurry add 7-10 drops of essential oil to 30ml( 1 fluid oz or 6 teaspoons )of carrier oil such as sweet almond, olive or apricot and add to your oil mix a small bottle

These essential oil fragrances can be used separately for personal empowerment, but when four elemental energies are combined the effect will make you unstoppable.

This ritual method comes from Ancient Egypt where statues in temples were daily anointed with different perfumes

The elemental ritual of power

Choose your four different elemental waters or essential oil fragrances. Let’s work with the example of four essences which I used in a ritual for courage to make a necessary but risky career move at a time when the family was especially dependent on my income:

Geranium water (strength and fertility) for the North/Earth

Lavender water for the East/Air.

Orange or orange blossom water (neroli) (self-confidence, good health, marriage, partnerships, well-being and abundance) or frankincense water (prosperity and success) for the South/Fire

Jasmine (intuition and harmony) or rose water for the West/Water

Set the appropriate water/oil mix at its own direction in its bottle and in the centre have fresh flowers instead of your signature fragrance.

Beginning in the North, open the bottle of geranium and raise it, facing all four directions in turn, stating the power you seek from the fragrance `Geranium give me the power to be strong and make my ideas fertile to attract success.’.

Inhale the scent and place a single drop on your brow and then place a drop of Earth essence on a tiny cotton wool ball in a ceramic dish/ash tray in the North.
Say: ‘With geranium I purify this altar and my work. May only goodness and light enter within’

In the East, open the bottle of lavender and raise it, facing the four directions. At each in turn name the strength you seek from the fragrance: `Lavender, heal my fears of past failure and grant my wish for new outlets across the seas.’

Inhale the scent and place a single drop of your Air essence on the centre of your throat and then another drop of essence on the cotton wool ball in the dish in the East, saying: ‘With lavender I purify this altar and my work. May only goodness and light enter within.’

In the South open the bottle of orange water and facing the four directions, at each, name the strength you seek from the fragrance: `Orange, bring me abundance of resources and the confidence to strive for what I really want.’

Inhale the scent and place a single drop on your left wrist and then place a drop of Fire essence on the cotton wool ball in the dish in the South, saying ‘With orange I purify this altar and my work. May only goodness and light enter within.’

Finally in the West, open the bottle of jasmine water and facing the four directions, at each name the strength you seek from the fragrance: `Jasmine ,bring me intuitive awareness of the right times to act and when to wait and be silent.’

Inhale the scent and place a single drop on your right wrist. Set a drop of Water essence on the cotton wool ball in the West. Say: ‘With jasmine I purify this altar and my work. May only goodness and light enter within.’

Finally using a dropper, take fragrance from each of the four bottles in turn and add it to a fifth bottle that you shake and place in the centre of the altar, saying: 'So mingle, you Earth. Air, Water, Fire, to join in me a greater power to bring what I desire.’

Leave the bottle in the centre close to the flowers until you need it and then apply it before the event for which it was created, repeating the final chant.

Fragrances and personality types

There are countless ways of characterising fragrances, oils and herbs. The following is just one method. I have found useful for categorising aromas that resonate naturally with certain people.

When creating your own personality mix, you may find that more than one category applies to you. You can add oils in proportion to the mix you feel is right for you to create your personality blend.

You can use your mix for a sudden burst of optimism or to strengthen your confidence and identity when you are under attack, being criticised or just feeling wobbly at a time when you don’t have your signature fragrance or when that would be too formal. More importantly you can add to your basic personality blend drops of specific oils that will temporarily boost your personality with qualities you need at particular times.

So dreamy floral people may occasionally need a touch of spice added to their usual mix to make them more assertive and reach for what they want rather than always letting others ahead it the queue of life. Equally a sharp-witted and acid -tongued citrus type may need an occasional herbaceous touch of gentleness in dealing with vulnerable people.

Creating the right mix

First make your personality blend, deciding either your pure type or a mixture of two, from the ones listed below.

Then make a very small bottle of each of the following kinds of other fragrance types.

Use either the essential oil water mix I suggested above or pure essential oils, remembering to dilute them, 7-10 drops of oil to 30 ml of carrier oil.

You can then add a few drops of the needed qualities by mixing a few drops of another personality blend for example adding peppermint, a spicy lift for financial acumen, to your own normally sweet geranium personality oil.

Shake the new mix well and empower it by naming the purpose, whether to give you a sudden burst of courage or to calm you down

Whatever method you use, apply only a single drop of the new personality mix in anointing. Be careful with the spices and citrus as these can be astringent and do not apply them to delicate parts of the body. You can always just inhale the new fragrance or put it in a small piece of silk to carry with you in a purse.

Personality fragrance types

Floral:

People who love floral fragrances are naturally optimistic, eternal romantics, gentle and loving. They love beautiful things but are incredibly generous, sometimes too much for their own good.

Other types should use florals to open themselves to love and to counter workaholic tendencies.

Floral fragrances include chamomile, hyacinth, jasmine, lavender, linden blossom, marigold, mimosa, neroli (orange blossom, sometimes categorised as citrus/sweet), rose and ylang-ylang

Citrus:

Most who love these fragrances are open to change, open-minded, intelligent, witty ad sometimes sharp-tongued, eager for travel and for new experiences

Other types should use citrus for the courage to try new things and to sharpen their communicative and learning skills.

Citrus fragrances include bergamot, grapefruit, lemon, lemongrass, lime, orange, and tangerine.

Herbaceous:

Herbaceous people are compassionate, caring people who are concerned for the environment and for any who are vulnerable, who are patient with others and accept that everything has its time and season.

Other types should use herbaceous scents to add idealism and integrity to money making plans and to get more in touch with the natural world

Herbaceous fragrances include basil, clary sage, fennel, hyssop, marjoram, rosemary, sage and thyme.

Leaves:

Leaf people are natural healers, expressing their creativity in doing rather than speaking, who are wise and experienced in the ways of the world and who make any place homelike and welcoming

Other types should use leafy fragrances to help them to settle down and to ground ideas in practical expression.

Leaf fragrances include bay, cypress, eucalyptus, myrtle, patchouli, and pine and tea tree

Roots:

Roots people really are rooted in reality and in the rich traditions of the past, slow to speak in anger or to act impulsively, trustworthy and loyal and amazingly good with money

Other types should use roots before entering into contracts, any form of speculation or matters concerning material security or property.

Root fragrances include angelica, ginger, (also spice), turmeric, valerian and vetivert

Spices:

Spice people are quicksilver, full of passion and fire, inspired by ideas and eager to explore what lies beyond the horizon, courageous, individualists and inventive, always able to turn a reversal into advantage and see how any opportunity can be maximised

Other types should use spice fragrances for courage, impetus for change, to initiate action, for financial speculation and to cut through inertia.

Spicy fragrances include allspice, anise, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, frankincense, myrrh, nutmeg and peppermint.

Sweet:

Sweet people are sensual, relaxed, charismatic, sociable, faithful, fertile in ideas, open-hearted, sympathetic, harmonious, natural communicators and always eager to see the best and to create happiness and well being, bringing together people of different natures and types to work or live in harmony.

Other types can benefit from sweet fragrances in undertaking negotiations or attempting to reconcile different demands on their time and to tolerate difficult people.

Sweet fragrances include apricot, geranium, lemon verbena, Melissa (lemon balm), violet and vanilla

Woody:

Woody people are natural teachers and leaders, idealistic, seeing the global rather than personal view, able to take a long term perspective and to guide others, good at starting over again and leaving behind the past.

Other types benefit from woody fragrances when starting over again after reversals or to persevere when the end of a goal seems a long way off

Woody fragrances include cedarwood, rosewood, juniper and sandalwood

If in doubt

If you are uncertainty of the right mix for particular strengths you need, make one fragrance from each type and set them in a circle.

Hold a crystal pendulum over each bottle in turn, asking to be shown which is the right type of fragrance to add to your basic personality mix for your current need.
The pendulum will feel heavy and pull downwards over the one that will be helpful right now.
If you want to be more precise once you have discovered the necessary type e.g. citrus, hold the pendulum over each of the citrus names above and see which it indicates would be most helpful.