Van Van Floor wash is a concentrated blend of my Van Van essential oil blend, distilled water, and an all-natural liquid soap. Van Van is a traditional Voudou/HooDoo preparation used to cleanse, bless, and sanctify the home, a Temple, ritual tools, or person.
It is traditional to mop a Voudou Temple with Van Van oil in the floor wash prior to any service or ritual. Incidentally, the D-limonene compounds in the essential oils used to make Van Van are extremely lethal to fleas, and repel a good number of other pesty creepie-crawlies as well. If you have ever lived in the South in houses with wood floors, you might understand the spiritual advantages of being able to worship or make magick without being bitten by fleas!
Traditional Van Van potions are based on the citrus-smelling grasses like Citronella, Palmarosa, and Vetiver. Some of these are included in my Van Van oil.
For my formulations I took an intuitive leap, based on New Orleans pronunciations. What we call Vervain in Europe and Texas (Ver-VANE), is pronounced (vurh-VaHN) in French and Cajun. Vervain is a European witchcraft mainstay herb, used by Druid and western Witches alike for purification and magickal power and healing. Verbena essential oil (Aloysia triphylla or Lippia citriodora) known by it's common name as Lemon Verbena) would have been available to early French perfumers based in New Orleans, but since it is quite expensive, it would be unaffordable for most New Orleans styled HooDoo practitioners and potioneers. Because of its powerful purification properties, I conjecture that Vervain (European Verbena officinalis or American native Verbena hallei), which has no scent or essential oil, was used in infused oils to obtain the powers of the Verbena, and that the lemony scent and purifying qualities were added in with Lemongrass, Citronella, and Palmarosa grass essential oils, as necessary, affordable and available, to approximate the elusive scent of Lemon Verbena essential oil.
My version of Van Van pays tribute to this history, and contains real Lemon Verbena essential oil. It is made on Wednesdays following the New Moon, and contains sea salt blessed on the Sunday after the New Moon."
It is traditional to mop a Voudou Temple with Van Van oil in the floor wash prior to any service or ritual. Incidentally, the D-limonene compounds in the essential oils used to make Van Van are extremely lethal to fleas, and repel a good number of other pesty creepie-crawlies as well. If you have ever lived in the South in houses with wood floors, you might understand the spiritual advantages of being able to worship or make magick without being bitten by fleas!
Traditional Van Van potions are based on the citrus-smelling grasses like Citronella, Palmarosa, and Vetiver. Some of these are included in my Van Van oil.
For my formulations I took an intuitive leap, based on New Orleans pronunciations. What we call Vervain in Europe and Texas (Ver-VANE), is pronounced (vurh-VaHN) in French and Cajun. Vervain is a European witchcraft mainstay herb, used by Druid and western Witches alike for purification and magickal power and healing. Verbena essential oil (Aloysia triphylla or Lippia citriodora) known by it's common name as Lemon Verbena) would have been available to early French perfumers based in New Orleans, but since it is quite expensive, it would be unaffordable for most New Orleans styled HooDoo practitioners and potioneers. Because of its powerful purification properties, I conjecture that Vervain (European Verbena officinalis or American native Verbena hallei), which has no scent or essential oil, was used in infused oils to obtain the powers of the Verbena, and that the lemony scent and purifying qualities were added in with Lemongrass, Citronella, and Palmarosa grass essential oils, as necessary, affordable and available, to approximate the elusive scent of Lemon Verbena essential oil.
My version of Van Van pays tribute to this history, and contains real Lemon Verbena essential oil. It is made on Wednesdays following the New Moon, and contains sea salt blessed on the Sunday after the New Moon."