Dec
Today, I wanted to share a fine distinction on the journey of how we make and market magical perfumes. Perfumes like Florida water, and agua de Kananga are by far some of the most popular perfumes used in the folk magic industry. These perfumes originally were not made for spiritual purposes.
How did these perfumes start getting used in magic? Folk magic is the magic of the people, and people used what they had available around them. Everyday house hold items have always been used in folk magic. Form the witches broom and stang to the the wise woman’s sieve, to a cup of tea used for divination. Even house hold items like red devil lye drain cleaner was used to protect the home from evil and the “devils” out there in their many forms. Red devil lye cleaner was not made for magic, it was made for cleaning drains! However the most fascinating thing is… It became and still is used today for magic.
As is Florida water, and Hoyt’s Cologne, and Van Van as well as many other formulas originally made over a hundred years ago by professional perfumers and pharmacists trying to make a living. What made these perfumes magic wasn’t the pharmacist … It was the imagination and magical sensibility. A sweet smell might sweeten someone to you. A dominating odor may help you dominate someone, the shape of the plant going into the perfume and its qualities all shaping and being shaped by the magical symbolic systems of understanding of many cultures.
Slowly perfumes started getting marketed to practitioners of folk magic. From Lima to Mexico city, to Chicago perfumes started getting made and marketed to folk magic and religious traditions. A shaman in Peru could buy a perfume made (more likely just marketed to them) for the purpose of combating dano or witchcraft called seven witches. Traditions of working with the perfumes formed, and more perfumes began to emerge targeted to the community of healers and those with more nefarious intentions.
Now today, a magical perfume is made with intention, and with reason, and is marketed to specific people with specific needs. Today a common thing a perfumer who works with “magical” oils and perfumes will frequently be asked, what is this perfume for, what does this oil do. It has become “what is this made to do?”, instead of before is “what can I do with this magically?”
What a fascinating transition.
