Murry & Lanman Florida Water

Overview

Let’s talk about the history of Florida Water, a two hundred year old product with deep connections to African American hoodoo practice, Caribbean and South American communities and also used by many others, but that seems to have started as a simple cologne (or did it?).

Vintage advertisement for Murry & Landman’s Florida Water

Part of my curiosity, is a desire to “decolonize” my spiritual practice, and another is simply intellectual and magickal rigor.  I like to know what I’m using and why – not just because a source says it’s good. And if I’m using tools created by other communities, I think it’s important to understand, respect, and share the community and the history of those tools instead of acting like it just appeared and has no history or connection to particular communities. It’s the same impulse that inspired Naming the Moons, because too many people use indigenous names for the moons without any context or credit.

I’ve found a couple of really great articles on Florida Water, which is used for just about everything magickal and mudane and sometimes both at the same time.