Licorice Root

Licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra) is one of the most sweetly fragrant of the folk magick herbs, with a warm, distinctive scent that practitioners associate with persuasion, affection, and the drawing of another person closer. The root is used most often in love and lust workings, in sweetening jars designed to make someone more favorable and warm, and in any working where the practitioner wishes to increase their own attractiveness and magnetic power.

The plant is native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia, where it has been in continuous use as both food ingredient and medicinal herb for thousands of years. Its magickal use follows naturally from its physical qualities: something intensely sweet, warming, and persistent.

History and origins

Licorice root’s use in European folk magick is documented across several traditions, including British and Continental herb-working, where it was associated with Venus and the sweetening of affection. In American Hoodoo, the root appears in both love workings and commanding formulas, consistent with its character as an herb that makes the practitioner or their intentions more difficult to resist.

The plant’s long history in pharmacy and trade meant it was readily available across cultures, which allowed it to be absorbed into a variety of folk traditions. Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, and Indian traditions all employed the root medicinally, and the medicinal reputation for warmth and restorative sweetness likely fed back into its magickal associations.

Magickal uses

Licorice root’s core magickal domain is love and lust, with an emphasis on drawing affection and creating favorable impressions. It is placed in love sachets alongside rose petals, damiana, and cinnamon to attract romantic attention or to deepen an existing bond.

In sweetening jar workings, licorice root sits at the bottom of the jar as a foundational ingredient, the sweet base on which the working builds. The jar is filled with honey, cane syrup, or sugar, and the personal concerns of the target and the practitioner are placed inside along with complementary herbs. The jar is worked by burning candles on its lid and speaking petitions for warmth, goodwill, and affection.

For lust and magnetic attraction, licorice root is combined with damiana, hibiscus, and cinnamon in sachets or incense blends burned before social events where the practitioner wishes to draw romantic attention.

Some Hoodoo formulas use licorice root in commanding or domination workings, where it appears alongside master root or licorice candy as an ingredient in formulas meant to make another person more compliant. Contemporary practitioners who work with these formulas are advised to reflect on the ethics of any working that aims to override another person’s preferences.

How to work with it

For a straightforward love-drawing sachet, place a chip of dried licorice root in a pink cloth alongside rose petals, a pinch of cinnamon, and a small rose quartz. Set the intention that you draw genuine, warm affection toward you. Carry the sachet close to your body.

For a sweetening jar aimed at improving the warmth of a specific relationship, place a small piece of licorice root in the bottom of a clean jar. Write the person’s name on a slip of paper three times, then write your own name across theirs. Fold the paper toward you and place it in the jar. Fill with honey. Seal the jar and light a small pink or red candle on the lid each time you work it, praying for warmth and affection between you. Keep it in a warm, private place.

A licorice and rose incense blend can be burned before social events or dates to increase personal magnetism. Combine powdered licorice root with rose petals and a chip of benzoin resin, and burn in a well-ventilated space.

In myth and popular culture

Licorice root’s long history as a trade commodity carried it into the mythological and cultural record of many civilizations. In ancient Egypt, bundles of licorice root were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, included among the provisions meant to sustain the pharaoh in the afterlife. Greek and Roman physicians, including Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder, documented its medicinal uses extensively, associating its sweetness with restoration and longevity. This ancient reputation for sustaining life fed naturally into associations with love and prolonged vitality.

In folk traditions across Europe and the American South, licorice candy and root were considered gifts appropriate for a person one wished to sweeten toward you, making the plant a literal embodiment of the sweetening-jar logic central to Hoodoo practice. Its role in confectionery, from medieval medicinal lozenges to Victorian sweets, kept it in the popular imagination as something inherently pleasurable and persuasive. The word “licorice” itself carries through medieval French from the Greek glykyrrhiza, meaning sweet root, and this sweetness as a quality of character rather than taste underpins the entire folk-magick tradition around the plant.

Myths and facts

Several common beliefs about licorice root in magickal contexts deserve honest examination.

• A widely repeated claim holds that licorice root is a domination herb with no connection to consensual love work. In fact, the root has a documented history in both consensual love attraction and sweetening-jar traditions, and its Hoodoo use in domination formulas is one end of a broader spectrum, not its entire identity.
• Many practitioners assume licorice root must be the candy form to work magickally. Dried root chips and whole dried pieces are the botanically active material used in sachets and jars; commercial licorice candy typically contains little or no actual licorice, relying on anise for its flavor.
• Some sources describe licorice root as strongly baneful or dangerous in magick. It is not considered a baneful herb in any classical Western tradition; the ethical complexity around its domination uses is a matter of intent, not inherent harm in the plant itself.
• The belief that eating licorice candy during a love working boosts the spell has no traditional basis. The plant is worked externally in sachets, jars, and incense rather than consumed for magickal effect.
• Licorice root is sometimes assumed to be interchangeable with anise seed in magickal formulas because both have a similar scent profile. They are botanically unrelated and carry different traditional associations; anise is more strongly associated with psychic work and divination, not love.