Having finally ran out of my Amazon-bought Florida water, I finally decided to make my own. Florida water’s some good stuff; it’s originally a kind of citrusy perfume or toilet water, but it found its way into American-style magic as a good spiritual cleansing agent and offering to the dead. It’s pretty Light-based, so dark-workers may not find the stuff particularly useful, but I love the stuff. I got the basis of the following recipe from a friend, but I customized it and charged it differently than how they did it, so let me share my process with you guys.
Ingredients used:
- A handle (750mL) of dustbunny-shelf cheap-ass paint thinner vodka (90 proof or above is suggested)
- A lemon
- A lime
- Six cloves, crushed
- A heaping tablespoon each of dried: vervain, bergamot, lavender, rose petals, hyssop
Process:
- On a Sunday in an hour of the Sun while the Moon is waxing, get all your crap together.
- Zest the lemon and lime. Thoroughly juice the lemon and lime. Slice up the remainder of the flesh and rinds finely. Put all into a clean 1gal container with an airtight, fitted lid.
- Put all the dried ingredients in the container.
- Pour the vodka into the container. You should have plenty of leftover space.
- Cap and seal the container. Give it a good shake.
- For each day over the next complete lunation until the Moon returns to its phase when you began, shake the container (preferably in hours of the Sun) thoroughly while charging the mixture with Light and prayers. (I use my Blessing of Light, the Trisagion six times, and the Song of the Serpent six times).
- When complete, separate out all the solid ingredients, strain out all possible liquid from them, and save the Florida water in appropriate bottles.
While the Florida water was stewing, it had about the right scent, but also smelled obnoxiously like salad dressing or dill-based vinaigrette. It was a little annoying, but the smell went away once the plant matter was strained out well enough and once I added another half liter of distilled water (may as well dilute it ahead of time and get rid of some of the alcoholic kick). It came out a light, murky brown-green, but for how it capital-L Looks ethereally, it’s pretty bright and solar for what I want. Overall, a success! I’m eager to use it, especially since it’s a whole handle of the stuff.
I like to use Florida water in cleansing mixtures (a spray bottle of holy water, 7-11 Holy Oil, and Florida water to cleanse all my magical tools, for instance), as well as putting a bit in my aftershave astringent. I’ll also put a splash into liquid offerings I make to the local dead or nature spirits, since apparently a lot of things enjoy this stuff, though it might be kept away from dark or deathy entities or workers.
UPDATE (2/18/2013): After Andrew’s comment below, I went through and filtered the Florida water. I had already used a fine-mesh strainer to get most of the gunk out, but after filtering it through cheesecloth and coffee filters, the color changed into a bright and smooth amber. Very nice improvement.
The Digital Ambler 
Interestingly, as someone who does do quite a bit of goetic work, I’ve found that it can be a good all purpose spiritual offering. In fact, after cleaning out old offerings, I frequently rinse my offering bowls in Florida Water before setting them alight to heat up the attention of the spirits.
That’s what I’ve heard, and I know it’s used as an offering for the dead quite frequently. Then again, some of the people I work with aren’t just dark-workers, they’re also weak against solar forces (I sound like I’m talking about video games now), so that may be just a bias coloring my view of things.
I love this. I’m going to have to try making this.
It also occurs to me that when I was making spagyric tinctures this past summer, I was able to filter some of the murkiness from them by using a paper coffee filter. You might try that
Actually, I just tried that, and it turned out a much lighter amber color. Good tip, thank you!
Hi, do you think it would work if I tried to make it with bergamot oil instead of actual bergamot? I can’t find the real stuff here in the UK, though i can lay hands on all the rest. Any ideas would be great!
Sure, definitely. Some of my friends only use essential oils and eschew the herbs anyway. I use herbs since that’s what’s most easily accessible to me. The process of steeping the herbs in alcohol is how one extracts the oils from the herbs, which really contain the essence or spirit of the stuff (hence “essential oil”).
Good point :) I’ll try it today – though I’m not sure it should count as a day of the Sun, there’s snow coming down outside.
Thanks!
It’ll work, since the weather, so long as it’s not extreme, won’t really matter. However, astrologically, Mercury just went retrograde. If this is your first time doing this, I’d suggest holding off until it goes direct again, or making extra sure you do everything right and double checking your process and ingredients before you start.
Cheers – I haven’t started yet so that works out well! I’ve got all the things I’ll need now, but last Sunday just didn’t seem like a good day.
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It s great to see people using the actual herb method as I have found it more effective myself
This is how it was when the pirates wore it! Brown and unappealing!
A lot of people ask me why it doesn t look like the commercial brands, and I have to explain the history! They simply did not have the convenience of essential oils in mass production back then. The herbs house juju of their own and in my works I prefer to use the old folk methods when I can, because I feel any commercial process from the plant takes away from it.s magical properties!
Looks great!
Hey, I know I’m late to the party, but in step 6 you have a broken link for the Song of the Serpent. Do you have the correct link available still? I’m intrigued!
The link is correct, it’s just that it’s a dead link, since the original site is no longer active, it’d seem. For that, there’s always the Internet Wayback Machine to the rescue! Try this archived link from March 16, 2015.
That said, I will note that (in the years since I wrote this post) I don’t typically use this chant anymore. I find it a bit too chthonic, too luciferian for my tastes anymore for general use, though if I do need something ophidian and self-empowering, it’s still a good thing to bust out as necessary.