Magical Sachet Powders and Hoodoo Deodorants - Learn How to Control Others, Boost Your Spells, and Make Your Own with This Mind-Blowing Guide!

I don't use a lot of commercially made magical powders. Frankly, it is usually cheaper and often easier to just grind up my own herbs or else multitask a bit of incense powder for the purpose.

However, in cases where one needs to influence another person, and has access to them, I have discovered powder to be the best mode of working on them. If all you're able to do is long-distance work, stick with candles and incense; but if you are working on someone you can visit in person, or at least access their personal effects or their home or work, this is where powder becomes a value. It can be deployed in various ways: sprinkle the floors, drop a bit in the corners of the building, blow it around the room, and so on. It has been my own experience that putting it on something they will touch is the strongest method to work this.

Why should an identical oil formula not work just as well for this? Well, it's a good question. My guess is that it's because oil is sticky and tends to stay put, whereas powders can get all the hell over everything. A teaspoon of powder has thousands of particles, able to float about, be inhaled, collect on surfaces. A teaspoon of oil just makes a big grease spot. It can also be harder to use oils secretly -- you might be able to dust a resume and blame any residue as being toner from the printer. If you turn it in with big oily spots on each of the corners, however, that's harder to pass off as not being deliberate. If people suspect you are up to something, they sometimes fight the influence a bit harder.

Another benefit of powders is that they have the power to enhance candle or incense spells. I never had anyone tell me this, yet I've observed several others also figured out this trick: when you write up your name-paper or wish-paper and set it under your candlestick or incense burner, dusting the paper with some complimentary powder or else just making a circle of powder around the burner really seems to add some oomph to the spells. Make of this knowledge what you will.

Sachet powders are less popular nowadays than magical oils, but the opposite was once true. In older hoodoo spells it is usually much more common to see powders used to work powerful magic.

One reason for this is that essential oils and fragrance oils used for making oils did not used to be so common and available as they are now -- especially amongst the lower classes. In the 18th and early 19th century such items appear to be unknown in hoodoo. Powders, meanwhile, are simply made from pounding dry herbs down to dust in a mortar and pestle. These herbs could traditionally even be wild gathered (i.e. had free of charge by the practitioner who knew where to look) and so were much more popular amongst slaves and poor blacks of the antebellum.

Modern style sachets are meant to be appropriate to use as a body dusting powder and are usually cut with talc or starch. While this has become an element of the tradition for how they are now used -- raw herbs cannot be dusted on the body in this same way without leaving telltale smudges -- it is a newer development, apparently coming about in the 20th century as commercial perfumes and beauty products started to be incorporated into hoodoo practice. Older style powders were usually just sprinkled in designated locations or fed to the targeted person, and contained no fillers.

I love my new style hoodoo body powders, but it's always good to know the history of these things!

Though nowadays dwindling in popularity next to hoodoo condition oils, so-called "sachet powders" remain an important part of traditional hoodoo style magical practice. 

The name likely evolved from the early 20th century mail-order catalogue era, when companies selling occult supplies had to be careful not to make claims about their products (regardless how traditional or effective they were) containing or producing any supernatural qualities; doing so would put the owners at risk of prosecution for postal fraud and false advertising under the laws of the day. Sachet bags had historically been little pouches filled with powdered herbs, which were used to scent clothing and linens (back in the days before dry cleaning and scented laundry soap existed.) An occultist could claim that his or her herbal powder blends were simply meant to be used as "sachet powders" for perfumery, and that names like "Come To Me" or "Essence of Bend Over" were only meaningless brand names for the fragrance blends, thereby skirting the law.

Powder blends go a long ways back, predating the use of anointing oils in the tradition that would come to be known as hoodoo. The Petit Albert (circa 17th century) describes sprinkling and blowing powders on people for magical for gaining mental or physical control of them, and the black slave Henry Bibb likewise was told by a conjureman in the early 19th century to sprinkle powder on his Master to gain influence over him.

Beyond dusting people with powders to control them, by the 20th century there are accounts of burying powders on property to affect some influence over the property or those who dwell inside. The Black Cat Protection spell is a working of this type, collected from an old-time informant.

(updated 5/28/16 to merge sachet powder articles)

SPRINKLING POWDERS IN THE FOUR CORNERS

Many spells or casters advise sprinkling a pinch of salt, or sometimes herbs or appropriate powders, in the corners of the house/room where the spell is being done. For example, were I casting an Attraction spell, I might sprinkle a pinch of Attraction powder in each corner. For a harmful spell, I could put some salt in the corners to protect myself from cross-contamination. In a Money House Blessing, some Money House Blessing in each corner would assuredly be beneficial.

I'll admit, many of my most successful spells included this step -- but that is not to say all spells where I did not perform this were failures. Additionally, I've never noted any particular luck in spells where the entirety of the spell is to just sprinkle the corners. This seems to work best as an assistance to a fuller spell.

Old time conjure spells often instruct that sachet powders be used on the body, particularly around the chest area. Perfumes are also a common device, instructed for use in many old spells and curio catalogues. These were common products at the time and were used as part of a person's daily toilette, to keep a person fresh and sweet-smelling.

However, these days, how many people use talcs and perfumes every day? These spell instructions are clearly the products of a time when deodorant and moisturizers weren't the norms, like now, and body powders and colognes were more common instead. Current belief is that perfumes are a nuisance, and the only person I know that uses body powder on a daily basis for health and beauty, is over 90 years old.

The body powder of today is underarm deodorant. Curiously, no one seems to sell these with hoodoo scents that I have seen. Lately, I have learned how to make an excellent deodorant at home -- in fact I got rid of my expensive premade deodorant because the homemade stuff worked so much better. It's not an antiperspirant and it can sometimes leave a powdery mark on dark colored clothes, but if you can deal with that you can not only make your own deodorant, but you can also fix it with whatever hoodoo folk magic formulations you want!

There's a few different ways I have found to go about this, so here is one of several varieties of the homemade hoodoo deodorant. This one uses anointing oil.

You need:
3 parts* anointing oil of your choice
2 parts cornstarch
4 parts baking soda

Combine the dry ingredients thoroughly, then add the oil and combine well to make a paste.

*I find a creamy texture is the easiest for me to apply and use, but if you'd like a thicker or thinner texture you can add or subtract oil as desired. This is intended to be applied with your fingers, but I know of people who've made firmer-textured versions that could be pressed into empty deodorant containers and applied the normal way.


Other variations include the deodorant made with powder and deodorant made with colognes like Hoyt's or Florida Water. 

• 1 part baking soda

• 1 part cornstarch

• 2 parts coconut oil

• essential oils -- use your judgment. Spicy scents like cinnamon need to be used more cautiously than something mild like rose oil.

The mixture is to be well combined and rubbed onto the underarms. Coconut oil is specified for its antibacterial qualities.

Additionally, you may add a small pinch of well powdered herbs to this mixture if your desired herbal ingredients doesn't come as an essential oil (for example, John the Conqueror root.)

 I moved to a new house a few months ago, and when I did, I repurposed a piece of furniture that formerly has held my oils and incense to instead become a clothing drawer. 

The trouble is, despite cleaning, it still held onto a bit of an unpleasant odor from its past use. (It's well known that spiritual oils and incense don't always have desirable fragrances.) 

I decided to make an old style sachet to refresh the drawers. Taking inspiration from a historical sachet recipe and modern methods, I assembled the following:

Herbs, essential oils and baking soda. The soda will help purge and purify any unwanted smells while the herbs and oils will add new, desirable fragrances. I decided to make my sachet after a classic Van Van, including the cinnamon and rosemary from the old New Orleans recipe. A coffee filter serves as the container for all this.

I simply eyeballed the soda, I would say it was around 1/3 cup used. Based on the old Verbena sachet I put in 5 drops lemon oil and 6 drops bergamot -- and I have to say I am a fan of that combo! It's a much nicer, deeper citrus scent than the usual lemon-sweet orange you get nowadays. (Though if you have read Conjure Cookbook you already might know my preference for Bitter Orange due to its stronger, and frankly more orange-like, scent.) I also added a drop of lemongrass to keep with tradition. 

After mixing together soda and oils, I added a few pinches each of lemongrass, cinnamon and rosemary herbs. I thought about adding orris as a fixative, but I decided it wasn't likely necessary. 

After that you simply close up the filter however you like (I used a rubberband, but a staple would do, or even string.) The resulting sachet can go in your drawer or cabinet to freshen and spiritually empower your clothing and furnishings. It will begin to work almost immediately, and should last about 6 weeks.

Remember -- in modern hoodoo, physical uncleanliness and spiritual uncleanliness are very closely linked, and the cleaner and sweeter smelling you keep everything in your life, the less evil and negativity will be able to access you.