Beauty | New Witch Themed Skin Care From Tibby Olivier

[The Ed.]

Since about June I've been bombarded with Christmas themed beauty products and honestly, I'm a little over it. There's only so much you can write about a product that, for the sake of one day, is going to come in a different box, probably a red one, with either holly, snowflakes or reindeer plastered on it. So, it was refreshing to get something a little different from the lovely people at Tibby Olivier...and even more refreshing that they are going to use an entirely different holiday to launch it: Halloween.

Lancashire based perfumery, Tibby Olivier, are launching a new beauty range which has been inspired by the area's long, dark, history of witchcraft and, fittingly, it launches on Wednesday. The company is also behind the very popular and Sienna Miller's personal fave, Faith Lift.

This year marks the 400 anniversary of the execution of the Pendle witches and the new range has been created to commemorate it. It's somewhat ironic that what Tibby Olivier prides itself on - the hand blending of organic and natural products - is pretty much what got those women in trouble 400 years ago but fortunately, for company director Julieann Parry, we're a little more open-minded these days.

"The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous in English history, and so we decided, what better way to launch our new shop than with products which are handmade in the shadows of Pendle Hill?" says Parry.

Promising to be more treat than trick, the range includes a Witch Cream presented in a miniature black cauldron, a 1612 parfum blended with essences, oils, resins, barks and flowers creating a multi-layered fragrance which last and lasts. Add to that the Lavender Wands, the smells of which are supposed to ward off evil, the Black Hat Bath Oil containing love potion essences, the Black Cat Sage Soap and the Sage Hand Cream.

The lovely people at Tibby Olivier can't promise magic, but I'm pretty sure you'll be easily bewitched by what they've got to offer.

Until then...geek on!

The Ed.

 

[Martin Duffy]

It's somewhat ironic that what Tibby Olivier prides itself on - the hand blending of organic and natural products - is pretty much what got those women in trouble 400 years ago but fortunately, for company director Julieann Parry, we're a little more open-minded these days.

The Pendle Witches main accusation had nowt to do with making herbal remedies, but rather to do with the making of 'pictures' (the old term for effigy magic), cursing, blighting and making magic in exchange for payment. A lot of romantic whitewashing goes on nowadays about witches of the past as though they were some sort of kindly old and misunderstood hippy herbalist helping out the locals! Magical practitioners of the past were generally neither good nor evil, they would curse a neighbour as happily as they would lift it, their 'cunning craft' was essentially a magical vocation embracing all sorts of skills, not all of them palatable to modern sensibilities! But hey, if it sells the cream, it's good spin...

 

[Shelley_d]

The new Perfume is gorges. X

 

[Moosebat]

in the research we have done with the local historians they would have made ointments, balms and creams to sell at the local markets or as healing potions

 

[Martin Duffy]

in the research we have done with the local historians they would have made ointments, balms and creams to sell at the local markets or as healing potions

I know ointments were part of the trade of cunning folk, but my point is that this is not what got them in trouble all those years ago. Cunning folk often survived without any issues with the law (for a survey of this see the historian Owen Davies' book 'Popular Magic: Cunning Folk in English History'). This was the case with Demdike and her daughter Elizabeth Device, who the law had thus far turned a blind eye to. It was the actions of her daughter and her cursing (the cursing of the pin merchant and his subsequent collapse), that began the persecution (by which time her grandmother Demdike had been a know magical practitioner for 50+ years without any legal persecution). Even then, most of the accusations that exacerbated the problem were caused by counter accusations between two families, each accusing the other f more malevolent witchcraft. For a great overall survey of the incident see the Thomas Potts 'Wonderful Discovery' (biased but one of the very few main primary sources) and Joyce Froome's 'Wicked Enchantments' (written by the curator of the museum of witchcraft). My overall quibble was with not with the suggestion that they made ointments, rather it was with the suggestion that this is what got them in trouble all those years ago.