Also called customer drawing spell, spell for business success, shop blessing, first sale luck
A shop or small business blessing drawn from hoodoo customer-drawing floor washes and from old first-sale customs: wash the entry, bless the first money of the day, and keep a beckoning charm near the door. It works best alongside good service and honest prices.
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Take care: Keep floors dry after washing so no one slips, and do not leave sugar water where it attracts ants. Cinnamon can irritate skin; wear gloves if you are sensitive.
Hucksters, pedlars and fishwives called the first money of the day the handsel and spat on it for luck, believing it set the tone for the day's trade. Handsel Monday, the first Monday of the year, was a day for small luck gifts in Scotland.
Uses: first coin of the day
Indian and Pakistani shopkeepers treat the first sale of the day, the bohni, as an omen and try to make it a full-price cash sale. Some touch the money to their eyes in thanks or spit on it lightly against the evil eye. A first customer may be offered a seat and tea.
On the rooster days of November, Tokyo's Otori shrines hold markets selling decorated bamboo rakes to rake in business luck. Shopkeepers buy a bigger rake each year and return the old one to the shrine. Vendors clap a rhythm to seal each sale.
Small traders everywhere have treated the start of business as a moment to guard. English dictionaries from the eighteenth century record street sellers spitting on the handsel, the day's first coin, and the custom of bohni still governs many South Asian bazaars. In Japan, Tori no Ichi markets at Otori shrines have sold decorated kumade rakes to merchants since the Edo period, and the beckoning cat, maneki-neko, became a shop charm in the nineteenth century.
In American hoodoo, customer-drawing work centres on the floor wash. Root workers and conjure shops in the twentieth century supplied washes, oils and powders for storefronts, barber shops and beauty salons, often scrubbed onto the doorstep before opening. The working here keeps the basic pattern, cleaning out and then washing in, using kitchen herbs anyone can find. Like every customer-drawing charm, it assumes the shop is worth coming back to.
On the first day of each month, stand outside your front door and blow a pinch of ground cinnamon into the house to invite money and opportunity. This is a modern social-media custom from the early 2020s, loosely echoing older Hoodoo and Caribbean powder-blowing.
A candle and paper blessing for a job search: you write down the work you want, bless your resume and applications, and keep a small charm with you for the interview. It supports the real work of applying; it does not replace it.
A small flannel bag holding a lodestone fed with magnetic sand and a John the Conqueror root, carried to draw money, work and luck. It is a classic charm of African American Hoodoo.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
