Hoodoo Health Care and Beauty Products

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AIRR Readers
and Rootworkers
Who Prescribe
Spiritual Supplies
for Clients
A tin of Lucky Brown Pressing Oil, a beauty product designed for use with a hot pressing comb to straighten the hair; it carries talismanic emblems symbolizing love and luck and is scented with efficacious conjure oils; label art by Charles C. Dawson, circa 1936
Many patent medicines of the past and present are conjure-ready, needing no adaptation for magical work; display at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum
The lid of a vintage jar of Vicks VapoRub, listing herbal ingredients which have both medical and magical uses
Commercial medicines and liniments have a long history of use in African American conjure as spiritual supplies
Pomades, pressing oils, and other hair care products can be vehicles for conjure work

Hoodoo Health Care and Beauty Products, including traditional poultices, liniments, plasters, ointments, skin lotions, pomades, and hair treatments, originated in the old hoodoo drugstores and herbal pharmacies, at the intersection between magic and medicine, where we can see the double meaning of the term "root doctor." Their proprietary formulas, which date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Contents

Drugstore Necessities

As spiritual supplies, these pharmacy and beauty products meet a variety of needs, from herb-based over-the-counter remedies for minor afflictions to magically-empowered skin and hair care products that convey one's desires and wishes to those with whom one comes in contact. In some ways they may resemble hoodoo and conjure oils or perfumes and colognes, but they carry within them the traditions of herbal pharmacies as well as herbal cosmetics. They may be used by those suffering from a combination of spiritual and physical afflictions and also by those who wish to employ skin and hair care products that have extra value as spiritual supplies.

Poultices

Poultices are generally supplied in the form of compressed dry herbal ingredients to which water is added to make up a thick mixture that is applied to the skin. They may be used to calm inflammation, relieve the itching of insect bites, or provide deep heat for sore muscles and sprains.

Plasters

Commercially prepared herbal plasters are generally sold in flat sheets that stick to the body. Capsicum oil, derived from red peppers, is often one of the active ingredients, as are mustard powder, from the mustard plant, and menthol, derived from mint plants. Some plasters function as counter-irritants, drawing blood flow to an area of the body in need of healing; others provide soothing analgesic pain relief to irritated membranes.

Liniments

Liniments are typically herb-empowered liquids that can be rubbed directly onto the afflicted part of the body. They may have alcohol, oil, or turpentine (derived from pine trees) as their base, and, like plasters, they may have counter-irritant or analgesic properties, and are used for the relief of sore muscles, sprains, insect bites, and irritant plant toxins.

Ointments

Ointments are stiff compounds of herbal ingredients, oils, and waxes that convey pharmaceutical and spiritual ingredients to the skin and coat it with a protective or medicinal layer of materials. One of the most-loved of these is these is Vicks VapoRub, a strongly-scented commercial ointment with a long history of use in the African American pharmacopeia. Its herbal ingredients include camphor, menthol, turpentine, eucalyptus, cedar leaf, nutmeg, and thymol (from the thyme plant).

Lotions

Skin lotions are silky emulsions of water and oil that moisturize and nourish the skin. As beauty products with health care ingredients they improve the appearance by removing the ashy look of dry skin, soothing skin irritations, and keeping the skin protected. When herbal ingredients are added to them, they take on use as a convenient way to apply spiritual supplies to the body for a variety of purposes.

Hair Care Products

Hair treatments and hair care products are cosmetic beauty supplies designed to manage, control, and nourish the hair and to encourage hair growth. These may be applied in the form of pomades, which are stiff hair ointments for firm hair texture control; brilliantines, which are oil-based compounds that add shine and provide light control to the hair; or herbal butters and creams, such as shea butter, which moisturize, nourish and protect the hair and scalp. Herbal ingredients often include rosemary, which has a centuries-old association with hair health, and rose fragrance.

Using Health Care and Beauty Products in Magic and Medicine

Workers who fashion their own herb-based poultices, plasters, liniments, ointments, and hair care products often do hands-on healing work for their clients. They may perform rub-down rites in person and send the client home with preparations and instructions on how to carry on the treatments at home.

No matter what form of poultice, liniment, plaster, ointment, skin lotion, pomade, or hair treatment your conjure practitioner puts together or prescribes for you, the ingredients will be selected with reference to your personal needs, whether for blessing, love-drawing, reconciliation, money-drawing, spiritual protection, jinx-breaking, court case and legal matters, or aggressive work against an enemy.

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