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| Sachets, Sweetbags, and Pomanders |
| In magick, and everyday life, sachets, sweetbags, and pomanders can play a large role. You can use them whenever you want, just use your imagination! Also, they made great alternatives to chemical air fresheners. These things can be made from anything you have around and they can do things like ward off bugs and freshen linens. These things can be changed according to the time of the year, either with magickal observances or as mood dictates. Best of all, they're easy to make! Sachets Sachets are very simple to make. Obtain the herbs you want, for either aromatic or magikal reasons, put them in a cloth, and tie it tightly at the top with a ribbon. If you have large herbs, then you can use netting to hold them allowing their scent to be released better. Also, you can sew a bag by taking a square of fabric and sew together 3 sides. Turn the bag right side out and stuff it with the herbs, then sew up the last side. You can put a sachet anywhere (pet beds, drawers, laundry baskets, closets, etc.) If you want to make a special sachet for your pet's bed a sachet of pennyroyal will inhibit fleas. For a cat's toy valerian root and catnip will work well. If you want a sachet for meditation nutmeg and myrrh is a good combination for focus and concentration. Vanilla and rosemary can be used for energy... the list goes on. Sweetbags Sweetbags are really just a type of sachet, perhaps an older version. For making sweetbags I used powdered herbs and silk bags. Most of the recipes I have could double as body powder also! To protect things put away in storage against moths make a sweetbag of orris, dried roses, cloves, cedar powder, rose oil, vetiver, and lavender. Another recepie for the keeping of linen is cloves, roses, and mace. Also you could add white loaf sugar, orris, coriander, cinnamon, and musk powder to the clove, rose, and mace mixture. For prosperity I use mint, pine, and bayberry. A good love mix is clove and rose. Sandalwood, allspice, and lotus is a nice mixture for enhancing spiritual energies. Pomanders Originally pomanders were made with ambergris as a base and then herbs and perfumes were added to that. They were carried to ward off the stentch of those who did not bath as frequently as we do (hygene as we know it is fairly recent you know!). Pomanders where hung off people's belt or worn on a chain around the neck. At one time in history they were used to ward against disease and they can easily be used in magickal workings and just generally as pretty things. I have one hanging in the corner of my room just for the scent! There are three methods of making a pomander around today, but I've only personally done two of them. A very easy on is to take a citrus fruit (usually an orange but any will do) and around 2 ounces of cloves. Stick the cloves in the fruit all over, you want to completely cover the fruit. You may finish like this, or dust your fruit and cloves with ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg to give it a spicy scent. If you are making a pomander for magickal use I sugges frankincese and myrrh be spinkled on it, but any aromatic herb will do. After adding any herbs you want to, sprinkle orris root of benzoin powder over the entire fruit. Leave your fruit in a dark, airy place for four weeks. During the four weeks your fruit will dry out and shrink. If you end up with mold on your fruit then the area in which you placed it was either too warm or too damp, try again and pick a different spot. Once your Pomander is made, you can use ribbon to hang it somewhere, use it on a Yule tree, give it as a gift, or place it in a drawer. Another method is taking equal portions of cinnamon, ginger, powdered clove, nutmeg, myrrh, lavender, rose petals, and benzoin and crush them together with a morta and pestle. The mixture will be pasty. Next, add a few drops of white wax and then form a ball of the mixture. Let your ball dry totally before placing it in a container. This mixture produced a more "ladylike" scent which I am more found of. Small decorated lace dollies can easily be sewed or pasted together and the scented balls placed inside, or if you are so talented you could make a covering for them. My great grandmother made many such coverings and they can be hung almost anywhere (though she hung them in bedrooms and bathrooms!). On the more magickal side I have used this method with many herbs and dried flower petals. For harmony I usually use lavender and violets and a good love pomander is made of willow, rose, and lily. I have never used this next method and have no experince with it, however many of my friends have and it uses wax as a base for the scent. First, go about finding a mold with the top and bottom the same size. In a perfect world, the top will be a tiny bit wider to make your life easier. Grease the mold with a bit of cooking oil. Pick out two (or more depending on the mold) candles with pleasant colour and slowly melt them down. Add herbs, herbal oils, until the scent is stronger than normally you would want it. This is done because with cooling the scent decreses. Then pour your scented wax into the mold and as it cools place a "wick" (or thick piece of string) at the center. If your candle pomander is soild then run hot water over the bottom to get it loose from the mold and remove it. You can decorate the wax, my friends are found of glueing lace areoung the side or crystals and shells. Use the "wick" to hang this pomander in a sunny place. Should your wax pomander lose fragrance, you can reuse the wax, or burn it as a candle! |