G is for Glamour

 (This is a response to the Pagan Blog Project. It's a week late. H is coming tomorrow.)

Tim Gunn is my spirit animal.

This realisation came to me while I was at work the other day, presented with yet another mountain of requests from our episode coordinator. But really, it's a deep spiritual truth.

Besides bestowing his chosen with the power to make it work, the Tim Gunn also imparts the understanding of the power of fashion.

"Mama, what the fuck, you drunken hussy," you may be saying. "What does fashion have to do with magic?"

Well, my darlings, I have two things to say in reply to that:

1) how did you know I was drunk?!

and 2) oh, witches, it's glamour.

I've spoken on the topic a bit already, but it's a big one and I'm going to revisit it here.

Physical appearance matters. You can argue about whether or not it should, if you like, but while you do that I'm going to excuse myself and get more gin.

In our society we have some pretty toxic beauty standards. Eating disorders and cosmetic surgery are a fact of life, and it is not my intention to encourage such things or to foster body hatred. Far from it. I truly and honestly believe that beauty is not a dress size, and women in particular need to nurture a true love for their own physical forms, no matter their perceived 'flaws.'

Style is not about hating your body. It's about dressing it to your advantage.  People will react to you based on how you present yourself, and no matter how comfortable you might feel, sometimes you need to make adjustments in order to get the reaction you want.

My favourite episode of 'What Not to Wear' is a good example of what I'm getting at. (It's a TV show in Salem. You're gonna see Christian Day, although he amuses me in this. "She looks like Joan Crawford meets the Whore of Babylon and I LOVE IT!") Here's a woman who dresses like a Halloween decoration, and while twenty-something me adores it, it really is not appropriate for someone trying to make suburban housewives feel comfortable while getting a tarot reading.

Now. The rest of the world isn't Salem. Most pagans I've met tend to be more... well. Frumpy. Big t-shirts. Jeans that don't fit. Huge ponderous piles of jewellery.

I'm going to quote old Uncle Anton, here:
"Concerning amulets, wear only one at a time, and tastefully, so it looks like a functional piece of jewellery. Would-be witches are notorious for loading themselves up with so much hardware in the form of amulets and talismans that its a damn good thing they don't really ride broomsticks since they'd never make it off the runway."

Bitch had a point.

(Although if I ever find a replica of the inverted pentagram Margaret Krusmark wears in Angel Heart? I am buying it.)


By now you might be thinking you've accidentally started reading Cosmo... although if you had there'd be a lot more terrifying sex tips that could result in severe bodily injury.

"Mama, I know what friggin glamour is. It's that scene in The Craft when Sarah turns her hair blonde via green-screen!"

You ever try that? I did, when I was a teenager. It didn't work any better than you'd expect.

But ignoring the Hollywood bullshit, lets turn our attention from the mundane tricks of glamour - waist definition, groomed eyebrows, killer shoes - to the purely magical. After all, we're witches. We don't play fair.

If glamour is, as I've said, about projecting a certain image, then it makes sense to approach it in much the same way you would ritual. First, pick your aim. Are you influencing for wealth? Sex? Staying out of prison? Next, consider your tools - in this case clothes, hair, jewellery. From there you can turn to correspondences of colour and scent.

I'm not saying you should go entirely nuts - have you ever noticed that wearing all of one colour besides black makes you look like you like a crazy person? - but incorporating a bit of colour magic into your outfit is a good way to boost your enchantment. It can be as subtle as purple eyeshadow to command respect or see more intuitively, or a tiger's eye ring to boost your follow-through and make you seem more dependable.

I read once that a lady's perfume should be subtle enough that one has to lean in to smell it. So in other words, don't drench yourself in the stuff. A subtle touch of fragrance, however, can work wonders in your favour as smell is probably the sense most likely to totally bypass the thinking portion of people's brains.

Smell of SEDUCTION.

My personal go-to for scents remains Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, although you can find some good witchy sellers on websites like Etsy who make perfumes specifically designed for magical purposes. The key is to find something that a) doesn't reek like patchouli or Brut, and b) has ingredients that would traditionally correspond with your goal. (And I may have just shit myself because I noticed BPAL has a fucking Labyrinth Series...)

 And of course, the most important part of glamour magic is to actually charge all your various elements with your intent. Don't just get dressed - get dressed, look in that mirror, and tell yourself what you damn well mean to accomplish. Own it. After all...

"Throwing a glamour, an illusion so real as to fool an onlooker, is one of the oldest forms of magic..."

You can do that. You're a witch, darling.