Red Brick Dust

An old conjure standby, red brick dust is seriously old-school, greatly predating as a curio or preparation all the perfumed powders and oils with nice names.

It's got a variety of uses, turning up in protective workings and in "recipes" to attract paying customers (or just money more generally). Within Haitian vodou, it has been used sometimes, in some houses, to draw the veve of the "hot" Petro mysteres.

In the Creole kitchens of early New Orleans when many meals were cooked in huge cast iron pots over open fireplaces, new pots had to be seasoned in stages before they could be cooked in. Rubbing the inside down with red brick dust was one of the stages, right before it got a good greasing with lard. I don't actually have any idea why, but if you know, please message me!

As with talcum and cascarilla, it's probably originally a New World replacement for minerals traditionally used in magical work that could no longer be had so far from home in the diaspora. Rootwork is always responsive to and intertwined with the actual physical geography of the worker and the culture. Literally, the dirt under your feet matters. Not every spirit of every root and stone and bone lives just everywhere in the world all at once --but they may well have cousins that can take their place in a different locale!

• Small Corked Bottle: Glass vial shape/size may vary depending on my supplier, but the 20 ml vial holds a volume of just over half a fluid ounce (same amount as my 1/2 oz  oil bottles). By weight, it holds just under an ounce of red brick dust.

• Small Bag: 2x3 plastic zipper bag, contains ~ 1 ounce