Wintergreen oil

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Hex-breaking: dress a white candle with wintergreen and burn it to lift a jinx or bad feeling from the house.
• Protection: a few drops in a floor wash or on the windowsills of a child’s room.
• Spiritual healing: anoint a blue candle for someone who is worn down or recovering.
• Cleansing: add a little wintergreen to a bath with sea salt for a cold, crisp clearing.

A Simple Working

• On a Monday night, set a white chime candle in a holder.
• Dress it with wintergreen oil from the wick down.
• Write the word ‘cleared’ on a bay leaf or slip of paper and set it under the holder.
• Light the candle and say what jinx or heaviness is being lifted.
• Let it burn down completely.
• Burn the paper or leaf in a cauldron and throw the ash outside.

Pairs Well With

• A white chime candle: for hex-breaking and cleansing.
• Bay leaves: to write petitions on.
• Sea salt: for a cleansing bath.
• Peppermint oil: another cool, clearing scent.

What You Receive

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

Origin & Lore

Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) is a low evergreen shrub of eastern North American forests, also called teaberry and checkerberry. Its leaves were brewed as a tea and its berries eaten, and the distilled oil, rich in methyl salicylate, became a popular flavouring for gum, candy and drinks.

Wintergreen keeps its glossy leaves and red berries right through the snow, a small evergreen of the northern woods that has scented gum, candy and root beer for generations.

Wintergreen tea is said to have been one of the substitutes American colonists drank after the boycotts of taxed British tea. Cunningham assigns wintergreen to the Moon and Water and lists it for protection, healing and hex-breaking.