Kissing Everything In Sight: Weirdest Love Potions on Valentine’s Day
It’s time to take your troubles down to Madame Ruth (you know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth?) and get yourself a little bottle of love potion number nine.*
If none of your boring old love schemes are working this Valentine’s Day, then trade in that bouquet of roses and box of chocolate for a good ol’ love potion instead.
Who knows, maybe those ancient love spells and potions are the secret to winning the heart of your special someone this year. What could go wrong, right?
Let’s check out what sort of concoctions medieval star-crossed lovers used to make their love lives go a little bit smoother.
1) Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me. I Think I'll Go Eat Worms
If you were desperately in love during the medieval ages, then you’d be sure to turn to a love potion to win your true love’s affections.
You probably didn’t bathe or have a whole lot of teeth... so you’d need all the help you could get.
Still, if you were asked to take a swig of a love potion with a typical ingredient in it like an earthworm or a Spanish Fly (also known as the Blister Beetle) you might just want to try your luck in the creek scrubbing the dirt off your face instead.
Especially since the Spanish Fly was lethal if you ingested too much at once. The phrase “I love you to death” takes on a whole new meaning now. Maybe flowers aren’t that bad of an idea after all?
2) Soylent Green is People!
An important ingredient from popular medieval love potions was uhhh... human remains. You could go the boring route and sneak a lock of hair from your lover’s head or you could just go all crazy-eyed and get yourself some powdered bone or blood instead!
We’re not sure how you explain that one away though... Your special someone will definitely not be interested if you try to cut off their finger. Just a guess.
And — although some recipes called for any old human remains — other instructions specifically requested the remains of a murdered person. Um...nope. We’ll stay single this Valentine’s Day, thank you very much.
3) Check Out Those Buns!
Baking a cake for your sweetheart is always a sure way of winning some points on Valentine’s Day. But, if you were living in the medieval ages, then your local witch might have recommended that you bake that cake in the nude.
And — if you weren’t already at risk of burning yourself while baking naked — then you’d also be instructed to rub the cake all over yourself and add a delicious layer of sweat to it.
Just imagine unveiling that treat on Valentine’s Day with, “It’s a delicious sweet cake! Oops, I mean sweat cake.”
4) Teddy Bears are for Wusses
Don’t even bother trying to win your love over with a teddy bear, because you’re going to need a totally different kind of animal for this love potion!
Several charms and tinctures used across medieval Europe called for all sorts of bits and pieces of adorable — and not so adorable — animals.
Do you think Costco sells sparrow’s brain, snake’s fat, or a toad half-eaten by ants? Ugh.
At least now you can politely refuse those gross candy hearts with, “Oh no thanks, I filled up on snake fat this morning.”
5) Soup-er Love
Thankfully not all love potions ask for you to become a murderer. Yay! Maybe there’s still hope that we’ll find love this Valentine’s Day after all?
In fact, most love charms called for normal household ingredients like dill, bay leaves, and caraway seeds. Onions were also especially popular due to their quality as an aphrodisiac.
So, we’re thinking that you should forget about baking a sweat cake this Valentine’s Day and just make your love a delicious bowl of soup instead!
It might not be the most romantic dinner ever, but soup might just have the magical kick you need after all.
If none of these love potions seem like the best plan of action this Valentine’s Day, we recommend that you try your hand at a DBH love potion instead.
Love inspired by a DBH gift is the perfect blend of sweet and salty.
It’s even easy to make because the main (and only) ingredient is something from the Design By Humans’ Sweet & Salty Collection. Gift a DBH tee to your special someone this year and have the best Valentine’s Day ever!
*Taken from “Love Potion Number 9” written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
