Holiday Gift Guide: For Your Witches

Reminiscent of the novena candles you can find at botánicas, these long-burning beauties create just the right mood for worshipping the Goddess or binge-watching Buffy. Sabrina—a lovely mix of citrus and aromatic woods with a bit of black pepper—suits my own tastes perfectly, but they’re all terrific. 

These herbal blends can be used as a facial steam, hair rinse, and facial mist. Or you know, tea. As in the stuff you drink. Each blend—Cocoon, Heart Opening, New Horizons—is paired with a guided meditation available on Wildland Organics’ website. 

Founded in 2007 by a musician and an architect, this perfumery has become known for creating wonderfully unexpected olfactory experiences. These are fragrances for the witch who loves the funk of a sweaty club as much as the scent of the forest floor. Fragrance is, of course, an intensely personal matter, so a custom collection of samples—maybe with a gift card?—is the perfect way to gift DS & Durga to a friend. 

This shop’s motto is “All-natural makeup for that un-natural look,” and that really does sum things up nicely. The ingredients are simple—stuff like beeswax, cocoa butter, and vitamin E oil—and the colors are rich and wild. Metallurgy is my personal fave, but I can never find my tube because my son the emo teen keeps swiping it. 

Ariel Gore is an OG. She is, among many other things, the founding editor of Hip Mama, the first zine by and for single, urban, feminist mothers. Now, she’s gathered a diverse coven of magic-makers to create this dictionary of spells for self-actualization and ass-kicking.

I have a few pieces by Lisette Fee, and these earrings are in heavy rotation. At a distance, they just read as punk. Up close, you can see that these silver spikes have been cast from real owl talons. Witches have a certain affinity for nocturnal creatures, and this raptor has been associated with the demon—or goddess, depending on your perspective—Lilith since the translators working on the King James Bible translated her name as “screech owl.”   

Caroline Elliot makes hand-built ceramics infused with mystery. Snakes represent wisdom and rebirth, and this particular snake is marked with the alchemical symbols for the four elements. This little dish is perfect for holding smudge sticks or small jewels. 

We’re all familiar with the image of a witch riding across the night sky on a flying broom. We can let our witch friends keep the details of their nocturnal activities to themselves, but any witch can use a good broom to sweep negative energy, cobwebs and—probably—cat hair out of her house and out of her life.  

This deck combines two of my loves: divination, and women who write. Katy Horan’s illustrations are gorgeously weird, and, in the accompanying book, Taisia Kitaskaia turns authors—some you will know, some you may not—into prompts for meditation informed by their work. Octavia E. Butler invites us to think about the future, for example, while Sandra Cisneros wants us to reflect on the experience of being embodied. 

“Flying ointment” is a mixture of herb-infused fats rubbed on the body to achieve a hallucinogenic state. So, yes, witches of yore were often high AF, but…all those witches flying on broomsticks to dance naked at a Sabbat? Metaphorical, not literal. 

Traditional recipes for flying ointment include some spectacularly toxic components, but contemporary witches hoping to induce an open, receptive mental state stick with herbs like mugwort. This aromatic plant is paired with relaxing herbs to create a dream-inducing nighttime beverage. 

Fans have been clamoring for an actual deck since illustrator Lisa Sterle first started sharing her vibrant, freshly relevant, and inclusive reimaginings of Tarot cards on social media. The completed deck is finally available!  

If I were to pick one item on this list to gift myself, I would go with these moon-and-star slip-ons. I love how subtle they are, and as I enter my crone years, I find that I am all about comfort. (I wear a size six-and-a-half, should anyone want to know.)

As the Oracle of Los Angeles, Amanda Garcia Yates has created pubic rituals and consulted with private clients. She’s co-host of the Strange Magic podcast, and someone who steps up to represent contemporary witches – even when that means talking to Tucker Carlson. Her memoir of growing up in witchcraft, growing out of witchcraft, and growing into witchcraft again is a wild ride.