Neroli oil

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Glamour: wear a drop on the throat and wrists to be seen as gracious and well bred, in keeping with the scent’s aristocratic history.
• Love: dress a pink candle with neroli for a gentle, romantic attraction rather than lust.
• Calm in the home: add a few drops to a bowl of warm water in a room after an argument.

Hoodoo & Rootwork

• Marriage and courtship: orange blossom scents are traditionally used to draw a proposal and bless a marriage; dress a bride-and-groom candle or wear it on a date.
• Success: a drop on a business card or résumé for a well-received first impression.

A Simple Working

• On a Sunday, set a yellow or gold chime candle on a small mirror.
• Dress the candle with neroli oil from the middle out to both ends.
• Write on a slip of paper how you want to be seen, and set it under the mirror.
• Light the candle and look at your own reflection in the flame light.
• Dab a drop of the oil on your throat and say the words on the paper.
• Let the candle burn down and carry the paper in your purse or wallet.

Pairs Well With

• Orange blossom oil: a softer cousin for marriage and love work.
• A small mirror: for glamour and self-image workings.
• A pink chime candle: for gentle romantic attraction.
• Bergamot: another citrus note for success and confidence.

What You Receive

Neroli oil in 2 dram and 16 oz (1 lb) sizes.

Origin & Lore

Neroli is the scent distilled from the blossom of the bitter orange tree (Citrus aurantium), grown around the Mediterranean and in North Africa. Bitter orange flowers have been distilled for centuries for perfume and for orange flower water, and neroli is one of the founding notes of classic eau de Cologne.

Neroli is named after a princess: Anne Marie Orsini, Princess of Nerola, who is said to have scented her gloves and her bath with the oil of orange flowers.

The Princess of Nerola made the scent fashionable among the Roman aristocracy in the late seventeenth century, and the name ‘neroli’ has stuck to the blossom oil ever since. The bitter orange that bears it is the same tree that gives Seville oranges for marmalade, and its leaves and twigs are distilled separately as petitgrain. Orange blossom is assigned to the Sun and Fire in Cunningham’s herbal.