This is a beauty mirror spell — a full-moon rite of self-love that borrows the moon’s kind gaze and turns it upon your own reflection. The moon flatters nothing and lies about no one; it simply pours its silver on all faces alike and finds each one worth the light. Tonight you will borrow that gaze and turn it upon yourself.
Most mirror-work begs the glass to hand back a fairer face. This asks something harder and better — that you learn to see the face already there as the moon sees it, without grudge or fault-finding. What changes is not the reflection but the one who looks.
Correspondences for This Spell
Beauty magic answers to Venus and the element of Water. Choosing tools that echo those energies deepens the working:
- Colours: pink and green (Venusian), with soft rose — a pink or white candle suits this rite.
- Herbs: rose and myrtle (both sacred to Aphrodite), and lavender.
- Crystal: rose quartz for self-love, or jade — set beside the mirror.
- Day: Friday, the day of Venus.
- Moon: the full moon, when the moon’s light is brightest for reflection work.
For the wider table of magical colours and correspondences, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- A mirror
- A candle
- A bowl of water
- A bell
- Optional: a piece of rose quartz
The Best Time to Cast
Work on the night of the full moon, when its light is strong enough to fall into the glass. For the fullest effect, choose a full moon that falls on or near a Friday, the day of Venus, when beauty and self-love magic are strongest.
The Working
- On the full moon, set a mirror where the moonlight falls into it, and place a lit candle to one side so both lights meet in the glass.
- Fill a bowl with water on the sill to catch the moon, then pour it slowly before the mirror as an offering of the light.
- Sit before the glass and let your eyes soften, refusing every old habit of searching for a flaw.
- Ring a bell once, and in the ringing begin to look at yourself as you would look at someone dear.
- Name aloud three things the moon would praise in the face before you, and mean each one.
- Speak the incantation to your own reflection, holding its eyes throughout.
- Ring the bell to close, blow out the candle, and leave the moon to hold the glass alone.
The Incantation
Moon that silvers every face,
lend me now your even grace.
Let me see as you have seen —
not the fault, but what’s between.
Fair you name me, fair I stand,
lit beneath your unstinting hand.
Glass that holds the moon and me,
show the self I’ve yet to see.
Rise when the candle is out and carry the moon’s gaze with you; the kindest eye you will ever wear is the one you have learned to turn on yourself.
Variations & Substitutions
- No bell? A soft chime, a struck glass, or three slow breaths will mark the opening and closing just as well.
- If the moon cannot reach your mirror, let candlelight alone stand in for it and picture the full moon above you.
- Repeat the rite on three successive full moons to let the kinder way of seeing take root.
A Word on Intent
This is the gentlest of workings — it asks nothing of anyone else and bends no one’s will. It turns only inward, toward the way you see yourself. Cast in the spirit of the Wiccan Rede, an it harm none, remembering that the first person the Rede protects is you: speak to your reflection as kindly as you would to someone you love.
Related Beauty Spells
Browse the full Grimoire of spells, or save this working to your Book of Shadows.