Plus or Minus Five Points from Gryffindor, You Choose
If you've been doing your home work up to this point with the Glamour Guide, you should have already:
1. Figured out what makes you exciting and attractive
2. Decided what your personal Great Work is
3. Meditated on what your darkest and lightest parts are
4. Contemplated how to marry those aspects together within yourself
5. Curated how to present all of the above to the rest of the world
6. Determined how to balance your personal truth with your primal needs (food, shelter, clothing, transportation, etc)
These are aspects that require a lot of deep mental and spiritual festering. It is not something that a lunch break and a Pinterest board is going to give you all the answers to. Have you been blogging or journaling about these questions? Have you been talking to your gods and spirits about it? Have you done any divination on the subject? Have you be talking to actual real live corporal people that (a) may have insight to offer that you've missed and (b) have to put up with your punk ass on a daily basis and should probably have a say in the matter if it's going to affect their lives as well? Have you been looking to your dreams, to your radiomancy, your local signs, omens and portents? Have you come up with a plan that is implementable on a non-magical level to work on your glamour? Have you come up with one sentence answers to each of those questions?
If not, don't proceed until you do have answers. Reread the previous posts if you like, to help you fester.
I know the next parts are the parts you're going to want to do because magic is immensely satisfying and gratifying and in certain ways, the easiest part of what we do. Figuring out what we want and how to get it? Hard. Throwing a bunch of items into a tiny bag and adding some *pewpewpew!* energy? Easy. Even though the magic I'll be talking about is more intensive than what I usually do, it will not work very well if at all for your glamour until you get those key questions answered.
I have a feeling that this is going to be received in the same way as when I talk about cursework, which is to say a lot of LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! SURELY DEB DOES NOT MEAN ME!
I will repeat one more time: Your life will not be in jeopardy if you don't listen to me, spirits will not come to get you, there won't be horror movie repercussions for not putting on your listening ears. However if you don't want to use your magic like pissing in the ocean and would like to actually manifest change and glamour in your life, you need to do the hard thinky parts first.
The Unsung Ballad of Hermione Granger
I am interested in the way in which an understanding of the root of the word ‘glamour’ reveals a relationship between feminine allure and magic, witchcraft and power. In the history of the usage of the word, the primary meaning - ‘magic, enchantment, spell’ - has been displaced by the idea of surface or physical feminine allure (although the relationship implicitly remains and is often expressed, for example, in popular songs - ‘It’s witchcraft’ and ‘That old black magic’ spring to mind) In reinstating the primary meaning of the word, a profound but contradictory link is posited between femininity and magic in which femininity is produced as a superficial and deceptive charm, mysterious and unknowable essence, and as power. - Glamorous witchcraft: gender and magic in teen film and television, Rachel Mosely
Glamour magic is an intensely feminine magical skill. Does that mean if you are boy-identified that you can't do it? Of course not. It simply means you need to access your feminine spiritual bits to wield this magic effectively. If you are very boy-identified, this may take some work. If you are very girl-identified, it will probably come more easily. Coming more easily does not mean better. In fact, coming more easily probably means lazy.
I am very girl identified and my glamour in my twenties came very easily to me. I was very adapt at getting minor things that I wanted from just about anyone because it came easily. I knew how to flirt, I knew how to dress, I knew how to manipulate and being young, thin and pretty did not hurt my cause either. Guess what? When you've been in a bunch of long term relationships and don't get out to clubs or bars very often and tend to hang with the same friends all the time, you now work with very small children instead of corporate america, you suddenly care about not having your tits out for a dinner at a diner and you are no longer quite as young, thin or winsome, those skills get incredibly rusty incredibly quickly. I've been scrambling for the last few years to figure out how to re-hone these skills that I very much took for granted and did very little work to get anything past parties, drinks and making out.
Believe me, at 35, the things I want go much deeper with a much bigger plan in mind than those things but frankly I miss how easily even those inconsequenial things would come.
And that's the beauty of glamour. It's both exceedingly inconsequential ("Gosh you're pretty, can I buy you a drink?") and exceedingly vital in making or breaking a kingdom (see: Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth of Woodville and Catherine de' Medici). Your plan is probably somewhere in between those two extremes but that doesn't mean you shouldn't aim higher than you think you have any right to and to still work on honing your glamour to receive triffles. Both will help you in becoming deeply rooted in your glamour.
What would Hermione Granger do if she was as confident in her glamour as she is in her intellect?
Caput Draconis
So what could you do magically to enhance your glamour? Obviously, a lot depends on how you do magic personally but I would encourage you to go outside of your magical comfort zone for glamour enhancement. She (the Muse, Aphrodite, Venus, the Lady in Red, etc) seems to really appreciate that extra effort. Because it is a lot of effort to do something that's not natural to you and as a seasoned Witch it's also suuuuuuuuper annoying to feel all baby Witch 101 again. But if you want that extra zing to your enchantments, that's what's required. Love robes and working with obscure angels and having long rituals with intonations in foreign languages? Time to start looking into some "Look Me Over" powder and dealing with shoving a Mojo Hand into a pocket or bra. Prefer to work with spit, things in your pantry and a candle? Time to start figuring out long form pujas or trying out New Avatar Power. With all of these new-to-you forms of magic, I highly suggest getting an adult (an advisor you can trust) to help you learn how to do things correctly and avoid making a mess of everything.
Ideally, you should be doing several forms of magic to really make this stick, you can chose your methods and traditions based on what you usually do. I suggest a 50/50 split of comfortable-to-you magic and uncomfortable-to-you magic. Here is a list of things that you should be doing magically:
1. Sharpen your intent. All those thinky thoughts? Sum them up into three sentences or less of what you're looking to accomplish with your glamour.
2. Sigil work is great because it comes solely from your intent with a visual cue. Enchant a sigil with your intent and put it on your mirror. Whenever you glance at the sigil, put your intent into it again.
3. Visualization mediation work, in whatever tradition you use. If you aren't much of a meditator like me, draw up energy from the earth and imagine it spouting out of the top of your head like a fountain. Imagine this energy to be green and sparkling. When you feel surrounded by that energy, think about your intent.
4. Give your gods and spirits regular light and water offerings. Ask for their help, re-state your intent every time you ask for their help. Be sure to remember to thank them for the blessings in your life you currently have.
5. Enchant something that you'll be wearing all the time. It could be a mojo hand but it could also be something else; a green jade bracelet, a necklace you make yourself ooooooooooor, in a resurgence of 1990s vague occult goodness, Alex & Ani bracelets have become very popular. If you buy just one, they're very affordable. If you buy many, less so. There's a Star of Venus bracelet that would be very good for enchanting. Since they're so popular, you'll be fashionable and no one will think twice about it.
6. Venusian work in general is a good idea because it gets you in sync with Venusian energy which will help immensely. Wear green, wear her symbols, eat her food (anything that is shaped like a vag would be the quick guide to Venusian food), wearing rose or honey perfume, etc etc
7. Allow yourself the experience of beauty and luxury. Generally speaking, we are all really quick on the trigger to deny ourselves sensual experience that come from good food, good booze, good fabric and good art. It's the first to be crossed off a budget list as unnecessary. It's really hard to evoke glamour if your personal store of glamour is bankrupt. That comes with some caveats: (a) it should be within your means and experiences/items that you can comfortably afford (b) beauty and luxury is a very subjective idea, you'll need to find yours. A night at the opera in Manolos is one person's bliss and another person's agony. Don't forget about the beauty and luxury of small things - a new nail polish, fresh figs in season, a small piece of grass fed beef, an artisan chocolate, cashmere socks (always on sale after Christmas as a heads up), sexy underwear, new paints and a small canvas, anything you can eat with your eyes as the French say.
8. As much as it pains me to say as the dilettante who views the world as her tank of sea monkeys, more than anything, be as consistent as possible in your glamour work. It's a magic that is very quick to act like my drama queen mint and lemon balm when they haven't been watered for a day; limp,listless and lackluster. It needs constant attention and constant feeding. It can be revived of course and some days when you're working a double and have to be up at 6a the next day, it's just not possible. But as much as you can, do as many of these things as possible. It's worth the work, I promise.