Your Witchcraft Supplies Are An Investment

The conversation around how "expensive" and "unnecessary" the various bells and whistles for religious and magical workings are is almost unnecessarily comical sometimes. I won't lie.

For instance: Someone posted a recipe for a "Dream Oil" from one of Amy Blackthorn's books. And in standard, short-sighted, "looking for anything to be mad about and not really thinking things through before responding" fashion, someone else reblogged it complaining that a bottle of undiluted Rose Absolute listed as an ingredient for it comes in at a whopping $124.

Despite the absurdity, however, it's actually a really good- if a bit extreme- example of just how ridiculous a lot of these conversations around magical supplies really get sometimes. And of how little they do to really impart anything of actual worth and substance to the next generation of practitioners. Especially regarding Witchcraft supplies, and the conversation of what you "do and do not need to practice Witchcraft" in the end.

Let's break this down.

Firstly: Essential Oils last an incredibly long time; the average life expectancy, depending on the oil, can range anywhere from 1 all the way up to 8 years. And quality and purity only increases shelf stability (and therefore shelf life). So unlike something like incense (which has an average shelflife of 1 year regardless of quality), these are not products you are going to be throwing away any time soon. Especially if you're not going to be ingesting them or using them on your skin- which means you don't necessarily even need to throw most of them out once their expiration date hits.

Secondly: A one-off "Dream Oil" blend is never going to be the only thing you'll ever use a bottle of Rose Absolute Oil for (undiluted or not). It's an incredibly versatile ingredient that you could- and likely will- use it in hundreds of formulations without batting an eye. Which ultimately means that a single bottle of it (whether you paid $124 for a pure one, or $20 for diluted) becomes an investment for your future magical and religious workings ... Not a simple, frivolous, one-off purchase.

Now. What happens when you actually break down the cost of viewing it as a proper investment, and account for the fact that you'll be using it in multiple formulations over time? It becomes a lot cheaper than you think; and certainly a lot cheaper than it looks on the surface.

⥓ The average bottle of essential oil is sold as a 10 ml bottle.

⥓ There's an average of 20 drops per controlled 1 ml of liquid- making a 10 ml bottle average out to about 200 drops of product.

⥓ Most magical recipes call for approximately 2 to 5 drops on average*.

If you're following the math, that's roughly 40 different formulations at 5 drops each, per bottle; even if you're making 1 formulation per month, every single month, it'll still take you around 3 and a quarter(ish) years to get through that one bottle!

But for the sake of this, we'll be generous and say that something like a Rose Absolute Oil comes in a 5 ml bottle instead, because it's so expensive and hard to produce. That happens, actually; sometimes rarer or more expensive essential oils and absolutes will be sold all the way down to 2 ml (you need to pay attention to that).

⥓ That's still 100 drops, or 20 formulations- or a year and a half at 1 formulation per month.

At $124 a bottle do you know what you're actually paying for the Rose Absolute in that Dream Oil? Because you're not actually paying $124.

⥓ Assuming the Dream Oil formula uses 5 drops**, you're actually paying $6.20 (or $1.24 per drop) if it's a 5 ml bottle; $3.21 (or 62 cents a drop) if it's a 10 ml bottle at the same cost.

Yes, that's still a lot of money for what it is; it's still an expensive product. Nothing about that breakdown changes the fact you must still fork over $124 upfront to have Rose Absolute in the first place (assuming you want to buy the most expensive option and don't just want to go for the pre-diluted version and actually save yourself some of the money everyone's whining about).

However? When you look at a bottle of Essential Oil (or a bag of herbs, or a crystal, etc) as an investment you make for multiple products and not a one-off frivolity? These things are expensive only for the first upfront investment each time. And the more uses you can get out of something, the more it makes up for that heavy cost of initial investment; you're not just dumping it all in, and then all down the drain, at once, for one stupid formulation each time.

It's literally finances, budgeting, investment, and inventory 101. And this is coming directly from someone who grew up impoverished and regularly has to convince itself not to have this mentality constantly about everything it buys because of poverty mindset and its resultant buyer's guilt.

That doesn't mean there isn't a conversation to be had about materialism in the craft, mind you. Nor one to be had about how authors frequently don't pay attention to the buy-in price of what they're promoting, nor check the consumption of their promoted materials, however ... But it is to say that breaking down the price of an entire single formulation based on the strait purchase price of a full bottle as if you're buying all those ingredients in full only for one formulation and then tossing them and never using them again really isn't making the point you think it is.

Honestly, instead of concerning ourselves with pricing and quantity every five seconds? The conversation should really be about learning how to discern about and properly invest in what's the most meaningful for the craft you're actually practicing ... But people aren't really ready for that conversation yet.