Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well!
If you live in the USA you are probably not, what with ice storms in the streets and ICE storming the streets.
I got so mad about it all that I made three new conjure powders:
Law Keep Away (the name really says it all)
You Don’t See Nothin (a powder to make your home invisible to authorities)
Melt ICE (a powder based on coarse salt, that WILL actually melt the ice around your house, and is also a… more aggressive form of protection magic, but is truly and unequivocally SOLD AND DISTRIBUTED AS A CURIO-ONLY FOR ITS FOLKLORIC AND CULTURAL VALUE.)
Until further notice I’ll be giving out free samples of these with every order on my site.
Speaking of that, and because joy & beauty & creativity are more important than ever—
If you haven’t heard yet, I wanted to share with you that I am now selling handmade fragrance & cosmetics as materia magica. After a LOT of study and labwork I am so happy that I can finally start sharing these creations with the public!
For those who know me as a card reader or who regularly book spellwork from me, don’t worry! Those services are certainly not going away. I am simply combining my love of beauty with my love of magic to create a new side of Dr. Finch Conjure.
These days magical oils dominate the market. But in the past, conjure formulas were often made as perfumes and powders, and were sold alongside cosmetics which also seemed to bear magical or lucky names:
I’ve recently added Cleo May products to my shop. I am currently selling this classic formula as a perfume, a nail polish, and a cosmetic powder.
Cleo May is an old formula that has come to be associated with working girls and the service industry.
Its name hints at its older antecedents, such as “Cleopatra” or the now-incredibly-rare “Cleopatra May I”.
Historically these perfumes were part of the craft of southern conjure. Older folks used to say that Cleo May was good for anyone who worked front of house, or anyone who worked for tips, to increase charm and open wallets.
Some folks would even be bold enough to explain its long term association with more… intimate forms of caring work. Old timers say that it certainly shines in those applications, but that Cleo May always saw a wider audience than that too.
The Cleo May name seems to have originated with the work of Morton Neumann, a Jewish Hungarian-American perfumer and cosmetic chemist who created the Val-Mor company, a manufacturer of both cosmetics and magical curios associated with rootwork.
Ultimately, the legacy of this company and several others like it is definitely ethically complicated. Whether you celebrate this commercialization period as a time of widespread access to conjure products or condemn it as a lurid example of cultural appropriation, it had a major effect on the tradition of conjure as a whole.
The Cleo May name stuck and the fragrant, bright pink product caught on as a popular addition to the atmosphere of the hotel rooms in which sex workers of the day saw their clients. The norm back then was to put a drop of Cleo May on the old-style light bulbs (which used to get hot). The fragrance would fill the room and create an exotic, intoxicating air.
The Cleo May fragrance was both floral and “oriental”. Though this latter term is often considered offensive nowadays, it is a fact that “oriental” refers to a certain style or genre of perfumes. This trend very much still exists in the fragrance world. Its pattern was set by the legendary Guerlain perfume Shalimar.
Here’s a great post about its history and its relationship to the also-groundbreaking fragrance Jicky. The modern fragrance community might call Cleo May a “floriental”, but many people have taken to replacing “oriental” with “amber”, so we can also call it a floral amber.
Thing is, cultures mix, blend, disagree with, and inspire each other constantly. And that is a very good thing! The original “oriental” perfumes were made by French people fantasizing about Asian countries and their traditions of incense and fragrance. It’s a great thing to be inspired by cultures different from your own, but it’s not cool to pretend that the things you make from that inspiration are authentic representations of those cultures.
As a fragrance, my Cleo May is inspired by the original, and by several other versions I have used. It’s common for practitioners of rootwork to make their own version of the staple formulae, again nowadays mostly as conjure oils. I had a lot of fun making these perfumes, powders, and polishes, as I love spicy, ambery, and floral scents. I also love any formula that helps women get what they want.
Here is the notes list for my Cleo May perfume:
top notes:
ginger-spicy tongue of incense flame,
crushed petal,
white tea leaf
heart notes:
a blooming rose,
unveiling delicious swirling secrets,
wisps of white musk bakhoor all around
base notes:
silk brocade,
midnight labdanum,
kiss of a rose fading slow
The original Cleo May was so successful in earning sex workers more money that it also became popular as a formula within the culture of conjure at large. At this phase, the older Cleopatra formula and Cleo May diverged, with Cleopatra becoming focused more exclusively on love & seduction and Cleo May adding this appealingly dominant edge that draws money.
A classic way to use Cleo May has always been to wear it on your person, and this new perfume, powder, and nail polish are no different. Cleo May products have also been used in spells and magical workings by those who practice rootwork and conjure.
While I legally cannot and do not make supernatural claims for the efficacy of anything I make or sell, I am happy to share this spell write-up that I created according to my study as an apprentice to conjure doctor Professor Charles Porterfield.
To Get Tips, Draw Extra Business, & Receive Gifts by Whipping Up an Air of Fascination:
Take a piece of pyrite, a scrap of paper (brown paper torn on all 4 sides is traditional) and Cleo May in perfume or powder form (both is even better!). Write your full name the middle of the paper, and then encircle it with a direct petition statement phrased in the positive, active voice, like these: ‘I receive lavish tips.” “Everyone LOVES to give me money.” “I constantly get special discounts.” “I am always showered with gifts.”.
The way I was taught to write petitions, you don’t ever lift your pen or pencil off the paper. And if you need to, you can write your petition statement more than once until it makes a complete circle around your name.
When you’re done it should look something like this:
It does NOT need to look nice. It just needs to get the job done!
And for the record, if this was new info for you, you just learned how to write a simple blessing petition, at least the way it was taught to me.
Now place the pyrite on top of the paper, over your name. Sprinkle the paper and the rock with Cleo May powder. Spray both with Cleo May perfume and as you do, recite these lines about Cleopatra’s beauty from Shakespeare’s play Antony & Cleopatra (Act 2, Scene 2, lines 229-234):
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her: that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.”
Then repeat aloud the phrase you wrote on the paper in a confident voice. As you do, take the pyrite and the paper and gather them into a bundle of cloth (red, pink, or anything shimmery will do). Typically you would sew that up to finish it, ideally with red thread. If that’s too difficult a drawstring bag can also work well, but tie it shut tight.
Carry the bag on your person so that it touches your skin, or keep it in a place where you do business, especially for tips. You can make requests of the bag by whispering into it and simply asking for what you need or repeating the initial petition statement you made. “Feed” this bag with Cleo May in some form at least once a month, or more often if you are making a lot of requests of it.
For maximum impact, repeat your petition statement aloud any time you use Cleo May as a perfume, hair & body powder, or nail polish.
Let’s turn now to Cleopatra herself. She is, in so many ways, the perfect figure to invoke at this founding of a beauty brand so deeply steeped in magic, myth, & folklore.
Although many women possessed the name, THE Cleopatra we still think of (and make magic with) today is Cleopatra VII.
Her life was certainly extraordinary. She was a sovereign who came into power as a teenager and ruled as Pharaoh and Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC. Although famed for her romantic and sexual affairs with the most powerful men in her world, she also commanded her own naval fleet, revitalized Egypt’s economy, spoke multiple languages, and patronized the arts, including expanding the Library of Alexandria.
Interestingly, while her powers of seduction were world-famous then and still are today, many accounts describe her as less than conventionally beautiful. Yet she had charm, what we now call rizz, charisma, in spades. As we saw in the Shakespeare quote in the spell above, Cleopatra knew how to turn heads, and, crucially, to gain power with her charm.
She was also very much a practitioner of magic, even of spectacularly public glamour magic. She wore the garb of the mighty goddess of magic Isis in public spectacle and in large-scale ceremony. She adopted the name Nea Isis, or the New Isis, as part of her royal title. In one very famous incident, when she met Marc Antony in the city of Tarsus, Cleopatra appeared in full Isis regalia on a floating barge adorned with garlands and wafting with sumptuous perfumes.
Isis was by this time already syncretized with the goddess of love, art, and beauty Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus. Cleopatra encouraged this association and in 46 BCE Julius Caesar commissioned a statue of her as Venus, installing it in his temple of Venus Genetrix.
Years after Cleopatra’s dramatic death (by suicide! possibly with snake venom!) her name was associated with two mysterious figures, both equally relevant for our purposes of exploring the links between beauty culture & esoteric arts.
The 1st century CE gave us Cleopatra the Physician, writer of important early texts on gynecology as well as a manuscript simply titled Cosmetics. Then circa 300 CE we find at Alexandria texts written by a Cleopatra the Alchemist. She was said to be able to create the philosopher’s stone and described several forms of alchemical apparatus used for the transmutation of metals.
Both of these Cleopatras were (mistakenly) identified with Cleopatra VII by several later authors in natural history and early proto=science, further cementing the association of the Isis-identified queen with beauty and the creation of elixirs to heighten allure.
The matter of Cleopatra’s racial identity is still hotly debated. “Black Cleopatra” is an image that endures and still provides empowerment, and was a staple during the era of Afrocentrism following the US Civil Rights movement. As recently as 2023, Cleopatra was portrayed in the docudrama series African Queens, casting a striking onscreen image that caused an uproar among some Egyptian officials, even resulting in a statement from the head of the Supreme Antiquities Council asserting that this was “a falsification of Egyptian history”.1
Series director Tina Gharavi replied, “…we found in Adele James an actor who could convey not only Cleopatra’s beauty, but also her strength.”
Gharavi went to to write, “So, was Cleopatra Black? We don’t know for sure, but we can be certain she wasn’t white like Elizabeth Taylor.”2
I am certainly no academic historian or antiquities scholar, in fact I am just here to share my joy in making cosmetics and practicing folk magic.
On a very practical level, though, it does seem worth pointing out that Cleopatra’s efforts to become synonymous with powerful magic and beguiling beauty are STILL succeeding more than 2000 years after her death. All of this makes her an excellent spirit to contact for those seeking to heighten their beauty and increase their influence in this time of chaos.
Cleo May perfumes. powders, and nail polish are all available now!
Watch this space for more writing and announcements of new creations.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Finch
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