Sorrel & Salt
Sign In

Reference

Compendium

Ingredients for spellwork: their formal and folk names, categories, deities and forms, with the sources behind them.

    Filters

    Filters

    Clear All

    313 ingredients

    313 ingredients

    NewCaution
    Chemical Name
    Potassium alum

    Alum

    Alum, in its commonest sense, is potassium alum: a double sulphate of potassium and aluminium, usually met as a hydrate holding twelve molecules of water, which forms white, octahedral crystals that dissolve readily and taste astringent. It turns up in nature as crusts of the mineral alum-(K) on weathered rock, and was long made from alunite; today it is manufactured from potassium and aluminium sulphates. It is one of the few compounds the ancients could find fairly pure, and Mesopotamian craftsmen used it in glass-making, tanning, dyeing and medicine, while Pliny knew it as alumen. For centuries it fixed dyes in wool, and the trade in it was one cause of war between Genoa and Venice. It still clears cloudy water, tans leather, fireproofs cloth and leavens some baking, and a block of it is rubbed on the skin after shaving or sold as a deodorant crystal. Cunningham gives alum to Saturn and to Earth and names protection as its one power: it has been worn as an amulet against evil in Egypt and along the north coast of Africa, a piece is kept in the home to guard it, and small amounts are sewn into children's hats to protect them.

    Caution

    Used as a deodorant, potassium alum may mildly irritate the skin.

    Forms

    • Crystal
    • Powder

    Correspondences

    Elements
    Earth
    Celestial Bodies
    Saturn
    Colours
    White

    Folk Names

    • Potash alum
    • Tawas

    Categories

    • Protection
    See in Compendium