Mixing Essential Oils for Magic: Aromatic Alchemy for Personal Blends (4 page)

Scent in History and Modern Magic 17

Taking a cue from the ancient Egyptians’ use of incense, I like to use oil blends as an altar offering. I have done this as part of ritual as well as other times to simply honor a deity. As an offering vessel I use a small porcelain salt cellar that has been in my family for about 100 years. It’s a flat-bottomed bowl that’s about an inch and a half in diameter. I place just a few drops of oil in the bowl as I chant or recite an incantation to announce its purpose. An offering of this type can precede magic, divination, or psychic work to vibra-tionally smooth the way.

Another use of essential oil blends is for anointing oneself and/or others. Since this is most likely placed on the forehead or scalp, it is important to check with anointees first to avoid sensitivity issues. Also, review the Safety Guidelines and individual warnings in this book as well as information from your oil supplier. When you create a blend for anointing, be sure to use a dilution ratio of 1% or 1.5% at most, which is normally used for facials.

Oil blends used on other parts of the body can range from 1% to 3% ratios. Any blends used on children should not exceed a 1% dilution. With your children in mind, consider creating a special scent that could include protective or general well-being intentions.

One way of using essential oils that has been fairly common for Wiccans and Pagans

is to consecrate candles for ritual or specific spells. If you haven’t done this before, simply place a small amount of oil on your finger tip or a cotton swab if it’s an oil you don’t want to handle. Draw a line from the base of the candle to the top on four sides (think cardinal directions) to direct your intentions outward. If a candle is for banishing or grounding purposes, go from top to bottom. Alternatively, you can draw a spiral up or down the candle or just create several circles around it. Instead of carving names, runes, numbers, Oghams or other symbols into candles for magic work, draw them in oil.

Oils are often used to consecrate gemstones and crystals. This will actually boost the vibrational energy of the stone and the oil. A tiny dab is all that is needed, and avoid bathing the stone in oil as this may subdue features such as any optical phenomenon. As with my altar, I like to dab the oil on the bottom of the stone to set the intention that my blend is providing support.

Speaking of vibrational energies, wearing a fragrant blend as ritual perfume works

nicely when daubed on pressure points such as the wrists, ankles, neck, and behind the knees. Be sure to use a mild blend that doesn’t exceed a 3% dilution ratio. Ritual perfume could be the same that you use in a diffuser or something different that would complement the other blend. If you are a member of a coven you might consider creating a ritual blend for the group. Using a particular scent will aid in bringing everyone together into a 18 Scent in History and Modern Magic

ritual mindset. You could also create a signature blend for your coven to wear at festivals or other large gatherings.

On an intimate level, you could create a passion blend for a special massage oil for use with your lover. In addition, a binding love mix is a way to carry your handfasting ceremony into your wedding night. A 2 or 2½% dilution ration is typical for a full body massage.

In addition to sacred and special use of oil blends is their use for more mundane purposes. Not only can they aid in magical house cleaning, but some oils such as lavender, lemon, and tea tree are perfect because they actually help to disinfect. I have also used essential oil blends before moving into new houses to energetically clear the space as well as bless it. For this I prefer using a tea light candle diffuser because the flame boosts my intention of purification and new beginnings. After giving the oil a few minutes to warm up, I walk throughout the entire house saying something like:

“Bless those who have lived here before me;

Any who linger are now set free.

May wisdom and love fill this space;

I call on the Lord and Lady’s grace.”

Special mixes can be used as house blessings for sabbats or other important times.

Protective blends can be dabbed over the doorways or anywhere you feel the need for it or any type of household energy boost. And, of course, forget about the air fresheners on the market. Make your own, which will keep your house clear as well as magical.

Sample Blend

As noted in the Introduction, I will be sharing a few of my own blends. Earlier in this chapter I mentioned my grounding blend that I use after rituals or whenever I need help bringing my energy back to a mundane level. I created this using the single scent group method of selecting oils, which will be covered in Chapter 4. This blend uses three oils from the woody scent group: patchouli, cypress, and vetiver. Both cypress and patchouli are associated with grounding and vetiver with balance. All three oils are associated with protection, which adds a sense of security for me.

Scent in History and Modern Magic 19

Grounding Blend

Patchouli: 20 drops

Cypress: 15 drops

Vetiver: 5 drops

For most magical applications, your essential oil blends can be used in place of actual herbs (except for eating them) in spells, charms, and as amulets. The more you enjoy blending the oils, the more uses you will find for them. Now, let’s learn about the oils and the basic steps for creating a blend.

C H A P T E R 2

Getting Started

About Essential Oils and Their Extraction Processes

As noted in the Introduction, essential oils hold the life-force and vibrational energy of the plants from which they came. As alchemists themselves, plants transform sunlight for many purposes one of which is to make essential oils.12 These oils are produced for various functions such as aiding growth, attracting insects for pollination, and protecting against fungi or bacteria. Most plants produce essential oils in small quantities, but it is the plants commonly called “aromatics” that create enough for us to harvest and enjoy.

Essential oils are obtained from various parts of plants, and depending on the plant, it may produce separate oils from different parts. For example, cinnamon yields oil from both its leaves and bark. Essential oils can be obtained from:

• leaves, stems, twigs

• flowers, flower buds

• fruit or the peel

• wood, bark

• resin, oleoresin, gum

• roots, rhizomes, bulbs

• seeds, kernels, nuts

Most of us have an idea of what an essential oil is, but the term is often mistakenly applied to a broad range of aromatic products from almost any natural source. Key aspects 12. Raven, Evert & Eichhorn,
The Biology of Plants
, 29

21

22 Getting Started

to essential oils are that they dissolve in alcohol or oil but not in water, and they evaporate if exposed to the air. Most essential oils are liquid, but some such as rose oil, may become a semi-solid depending on the temperature. Other oils are solids. However, the defining factor is the method used to extract the oil from plant material. Essential oils, also called volatile oils, are obtained through the processes of distillation and expression. Aromatic extracts are obtained by solvent extraction. The products created by solvent extraction contain both volatile and non-volatile components. Let’s take a closer look at these processes and the products produced from them.

Essential Oils

Aromatic Extracts

Plant Material

Hydrosols

Distillation

Expression

Solvent Extractions

Essential Oils

Citrus Oils

Concretes

Resinoids

Resin

Absolutes

Absolutes

Figure 2.1 Methods of Extraction

The oldest and easiest method of oil extraction is called expression or cold pressing.

Cold pressed may be a familiar term for those who enjoy cooking with olive oil. For essential oils, this extraction process works only with citrus fruits because they hold high quantities of oil near the surface of their rinds. Depending on the plant, the whole fruit or just the peel is crushed and then the volatile oil is separated out with a centrifuge. This simple mechanical method does not require heat or chemicals. Just a point to keep in mind: if the plants were not organically grown there may be a chance that the fruit was sprayed and any pesticide residue that remained on it may result in trace amounts in the oil.

Getting Started 23

The most prevalent process for extracting essential oils is through distillation, which can be accomplished using steam or water. In the distillation process, the volatile and water-insoluble parts of plants are separated allowing the essential oil to be collected.

Sometimes products are distilled a second time to further purify the oil and rid it of any non-volatile material that may have been left behind the first time.

Steam

Oil vapor

Condenser

rises with

cools steam

steam

to a liquid

Water is

heated

Vessel with

plant material

Separator

Essential Oil

Hydrosol

Figure 2.2 The distillation process using steam.

When steam is used in the distillation process as illustrated in Figure 2.2, it is pumped into a vessel from underneath the plant material. Heat and pressure within the vessel produced by the steam cause the plant material to break down and release its volatile oil.

The oil becomes vaporized and is transported with the steam through the still into the condenser where they are cooled. This returns the oil and water to their liquid states.

Depending on the density of the oil, it will either float to the top or sink to the bottom of the water. Either way, it is easily separated out. Different plants as well as various parts of plants require different amounts of time and temperatures for this process.

Hydro diffusion is a slightly different form of steam distillation where the steam is forced into the vessel from above rather than below the plant material. The advantages are that it takes less steam and generally a shorter amount of time for this process. In addition, some perfumers believe that hydro diffusion produces a richer aroma than the standard steam distillation.

24 Getting Started

In water distillation, plant material is completely immersed in hot water. This process uses less pressure and slightly lower temperatures than steam distillation. Nevertheless, some plants such as clary sage and lavender tend to break down in this process. On the other hand, because neroli (orange blossom) is sensitive to high temperatures, water distillation works well.

After the essential oil is separated from the water in these distillation processes, the water itself is an aromatic by-product called a hydrosol. Traditionally these have been called floral waters (i.e. rosewater) and contain the water-soluble molecules of aromatic plants. Hydrosols are also called hydroflorates and hydrolats. The latter name comes from the Latin
latte
(familiar to coffee drinkers) meaning milk. It was so named because floral waters appear somewhat cloudy or milky just after they are separated from the essential oil. Although they are chemically different from their corresponding essential oils, the fragrance is similar. However, because hydrosols are water-based they do not mix well with oils. Also note, hydrosols should not be used in place of flower essence remedies as they are not prepared under the same conditions required for consumable products.

The term flower essences may cause some confusion because they are not fragrant

and they are not essential oils. They are infusions of flowers in water, which is then mixed in a 50% brandy solution. Whereas the brandy acts as a preservative for flower essences, hydrosols being mostly water, can go bad.

The heat employed in steam and water distillation can cause changes to the plant

material and the resulting oil. Sometimes, this can be a good thing, but in other circum-stances, not so much. For example, heat converts the chemical matricin in German chamomile to chamazulene, which gives the oil its blue color. Medicinally, this is considered advantageous because the chamazulene makes the oil useful for anti-inflammatory treatments. On the other hand, jasmine flowers are so delicate that heat or water destroys the volatile oil.

To avoid the negative effects that heat or water have on some plants, the solvent extraction process is used to obtain essential oil. Chemicals such as butane, hexane, ethanol, methanol, or petroleum ether are used in this process to rinse the volatile oil from the plant. This rinsing produces a semi-solid, waxy product called a concrete which, in addition to the volatile oil, contains the plant’s waxes and fatty acids. In the case of jasmine, the concrete is 50% wax and 50% volatile oil. An advantage of a concrete is that it is more stable and concentrated than an essential oil.

Getting Started 25

Further rinsing with alcohol or ethanol, or a freezing process is used to remove the solvents and waxes. This step produces a substance called an absolute. While these substances are usually viscous liquids, they can be solids or semi-solids. Absolutes are highly concentrated and have a stronger, richer fragrance that is often more like the plant itself than the essential oil, which makes them attractive for perfumery. The solvent extraction method produces a greater yield than distillation and is useful on plants that generally have low quantities of oil. Absolutes and concretes are sometimes distilled to produce an essential oil. A problem with absolutes and concretes is that they contain impurities: traces of the chemicals used to remove the oil from the plant material.

In an attempt to avoid the problem of impurities, a newer method called CO2 ex-

traction, sometimes called super-critical CO2 extraction has been developed. This process uses carbon dioxide in a liquid state at high pressure to dissolve plant material and release the oil. Afterwards, when the pressure is reduced, the carbon dioxide returns to its gas-eous state leaving the oil behind and reportedly no chemical residue as in typical solvent extraction. However, like solvent extraction, CO2 extracts contain fats, waxes, and resins from the plants.