Van Van Oil

Van Van is one of the classic hoodoo condition oils: a lemongrass-based blend sold to 'change' a run of luck, to clear away what is stuck and to draw what is wanted. It is one of the oldest named formulas in the American trade, it appears in the catalogues of the supply houses from the early twentieth century, and it has outlived most of its competitors - which is why it is a better guide to what a condition oil is than any single-purpose product.

It is worn on the hands and the pulse points, used to dress a candle, added to a bath or a floor wash, used to feed a hand, and rubbed on the body before a court case, a job interview or a gambling table. Its use is general rather than specific - clearing, changing, opening - and the tradition treats it as a standby rather than a specialist.

Van Van is a commercial product, and the corpus records it as one: the formula is a trade recipe, the trademark history is a business history, and the tradition's use of it is a use of a bought object. That is not a debasement - the supply houses were Black-owned businesses serving Black communities for much of the twentieth century, and the commerce and the practice grew together - but it does mean that a bottle is not an initiation.