Disclaimer

This disclaimer is part of the Terms of Use: agreeing to the terms is agreeing to it.

The Short Version

• Sorrel & Salt is folklore and reference. Nothing on it is medical, legal or other professional advice.
• The compendium is how its admins and curators read their sources. It is not an authority, and spirituality is personal.
• The site comes with no warranty. Its text can be wrong, out of date or incomplete.
• Safety notes do not list every risk. If an ingredient has no safety note, that does not mean it is safe.
• An ingredient can harm in a way its usual use does not suggest. Something eaten every day can burn the skin as an oil or irritate the lungs in the air.

What the Compendium Is

Information, Not Advice

The compendium records what traditions, books and other sources say about ingredients: their correspondences, their folk names, the deities and festivals they are linked with, and what those sources say about handling them. It records these things so that a coven can look them up and cite them. It does not tell you what to do with them.

If you are ill, pregnant, breastfeeding, taking medicine or caring for someone who is, ask a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified professional before you eat, drink, burn, inhale or put on your skin anything described here. If you think you or someone else has been poisoned, contact your local poison centre or emergency service straight away.

An Interpretation, Not an Authority

What the compendium says is its admins' and curators' understanding of the sources they have read. They choose which sources to cite and decide what each one means for an entry, and another reader of the same books could decide differently. The site is not an authority on any tradition or practice.

Spirituality is personal. Your own practice, tradition and experience may differ from what you read here, and they are yours to follow.

No Warranty

The site is offered as it is. The people who run it do their best to cite a source for every claim and to mark what has not been checked, but they do not promise that any page is accurate, complete or current, and they accept no responsibility for what you do with it. Where a page cites a source, the source is the authority, not the page.

Safety

Safety Notes Are Not Complete

A safety note on an ingredient is what a cited source said about it, as far as the curators have read. It is not a toxicology report. A note may cover one hazard and miss another; it may describe the ingredient as a whole and say nothing about a particular form; and many ingredients have no note at all because nobody has written one yet, not because the ingredient is safe.

So read every safety note as "at least this", never as "only this", and read the absence of a note as "nothing recorded", never as "nothing to worry about". The line under each ingredient's notes, and under each form's, says so and links here.

A Familiar Ingredient Can Still Harm

An ingredient that is safe in its usual use can be harmful in another. Changing the form, the dose or the route into the body changes the risk. Two documented cases, both of everyday foods:

• Bergamot. An essence from the peel of this citrus fruit flavours Earl Grey tea, and its peel is sometimes candied. The same oil on the skin, followed by ultraviolet light, has caused blistering burns within two to three days, because of a compound in it called bergapten.^#1#2
• Chilli. Many people enjoy the heat chilli peppers add to food. Yet the compound that gives that heat, capsaicin, causes pain and redness when its oils get on the skin, intense pain if juice reaches an eye, and, when inhaled, can trigger an asthma attack or respiratory distress in susceptible people.^#3

These are just some examples about how risk changes with use. Please do your own research and ask a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified professional for advice.

Other Sites

The compendium links to the sources it cites. The site does not control those pages and does not vouch for them. Curators and admins try to use reputable sources but cannot control the words of other authors.

Questions

If a page is wrong, incomplete or dangerous, tell us through the support form. A correction with a source is the most useful thing you can send.

Sources

1. Kaddu, Steven, Helmut Kerl, and Peter Wolf. "Accidental Bullous Phototoxic Reactions to Bergamot Aromatherapy Oil." Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 45, no. 3 (2001): 458–61. https://doi.org/10.1067/mjd.2001.116226.↩
2. Wikipedia. "Bergamot Orange." Accessed 1 November 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergamot_orange.↩
3. McDaniel-Price, Amanda. "Capsaicin: When the Chili Is Too Hot." National Capital Poison Center. Accessed 1 November 2026. https://www.poison.org/articles/capsaicin-when-the-chili-is-too-hot.↩