How to cleanse and charge crystals

Collecting crystals is an ancient pastime that remains practiced today. While each crystal is as unique and beautiful as snowflakes, they may hold some invisible wellness benefits. The thought is that crystals interact with the body’s energy and vibrational field using their own frequency, creating balance and alignment. At the same time, crystals act like sponges to the energy around them. So while they can attract positive energy, they can also retain negative energy.

To care for them and have them function at their best, it’s good practice to cleanse them of unwanted negative energies and charge them with light and new intentions.

When to Cleanse Your Crystals

There are a few times when cleansing your crystals is highly recommended. When they are first acquired, it's important to purify them of any previously collected energies. You might also want to cleanse them if you’re going through difficult times and need extra positive energy.

Most Common Ways to Cleanse Your Crystals

Fresh Water

You can do this in a few different ways by submerging your stones in freshwater from either collected rainwater, a lake, a running stream, a waterfall, or even a faucet (in a bath or bowl). 

Just keep in mind that some crystals are not meant to interact with water, such as raw unpolished malachite, and others that are soft and porous like selenite and may dissolve.

Salt Water

If you live near the sea, you can place your crystals in a mesh bag or jar and bathe them in the ocean water for a few minutes. If you have too many crystals to take to the beach, collect the sea water in a clean bottle and immerse the stones in the water at home.

Naturally occurring salty ocean water is ideal, but you can also cleanse them with a DIY saltwater quick rinse or bath. Just fill a bowl with salted water and place your crystals in it. You can allow it to soak for as little as one hour. When your cleanse is complete, rinse your stone in cool freshwater and toss the salt bath away.

Sunlight and Moonlight

Natural light from the sun and the moon provide two purposes in that they not only cleanse your crystals but can also be used to give them a recharge. Placing your stones in direct sunlight outside or on a windowsill to soak in the rays will provide them with a boost of energy. 

For moonlight, it's recommended that you do so during or close to a full moon phase, as it's a time when magical happenings take place. The moonlight is at its brightest and most mystical.

This is a quick cleanse that only takes a few hours, but make sure that light-sensitive crystals such as citrine and amethyst are not left in the heat of the sun, or they can eventually begin to fade.

Sage

Sacred smoke from sage bundles is very powerful and can act almost as spiritual energy bleach. To deeply cleanse your crystals, carefully light the end of the sage bundle and let it burn for a few moments, then blow out the flames. With your crystal in one hand and the sage bundle in the other, waft the crystal through the smoke for about thirty seconds. You’ll find that this is a quick and easy method of purification for your stones and home. You can also use the smoke from sacred palo santo wood as well.

Sound

You can use sound and the vibrations from chimes, bells, a tuning fork, and singing bowls to create a bath to cleanse crystals. The effect is like tuning an instrument with vibrations. It resets, aligns, and balances the stone’s frequency or aura. Place the stones on a flat surface and gently ring the bells over the top of them a few times. This is ideal for someone with many stones as they do not have to be moved.

Using Another Stone for Cleansing

Some stones are known for their own ability to neutralize negative energy and replace it with positive vibes like geodes, quartz, and selenite slabs. It’s thought that the stone's inherent vibrations dispel undesirable energies found in the resting stone. Simply place the stone or crystal you'd like to cleanse directly inside, surrounding, next to, or on top of the other cleansing stones. 

How to Activate and Empower Your Crystals

After you have cleansed your crystal, the next step is to activate it with your energy. When you do this, you are connecting to it so that it recognizes your energy and will work its magic alongside you. Here’s how: 

♦ Ground your body with deep breathing.
♦ Set an intention and ask your crystal for support, either aloud or silently.
♦ Quiet your mind and focus on your intention for a few minutes or until it feels right.
♦ Close your ritual by thanking your crystal.

How Often Do You Need to Cleanse Your Crystals?

The more often you use a stone, the more energy it collects. A good rule of thumb is to clear all of your stones about once a month or so, but you don’t have to wait a designated amount of time between cleansings, just what feels right to you.

Conclusion

After cleansing and charging our crystals, the stone should feel energetically lighter. When we nurture and care for our crystals, we’re practicing an ancient form of selfcare that brings positivity to our mind, body, and soul. We’re allowing inharmonious energy to leave in a peaceful manner. Taking these extra steps allows us to be more mindful of their energy forged deep on the earth and be more receptive to the mystical support they offer.

Crystals are prettyyy, but if you really want to work with their energy, you can’t just stick ’em on a shelf and look at ’em. These lil beauts are believed to vibrate at frequencies that we can ~werk with~, and that means they can pick up and hold on to the energy around them. You have to take care of your crystal friends in order to access their energy. And an important part of that is cleansing and charging them. No soap or phone cord required.

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Crystals have a ~memory~. They absorb the energy of whatever’s around them—the people who handle them, the environments they travel through, the gross vibes from the gum wrapper next to ’em in your purse. If you just got a new crystal buddy, who knows where that lil guy has been before it made its way to your bedroom? Sometimes the energies it picks up on are in direct opposition to the crystal’s innate traits or oppose what we want to use the crystal to attract into our life. Those acquired energies can simply ~clog up~ the crystal, blocking it from working as it should.

Cleansing sweeps away all those clingy vibes and brings the crystal back to its natural, pure state. Then it’ll be able to work the way you want it to.

How often should you cleanse your crystals?

Cleanse your crystals whenever you get new ones and definitely before you use them for the first time. If you have crystals you’ve owned for years but never cleansed, that’s okay! You can start now.

If you’ve been wearing your crystal (like on a necklace) or carrying it around all day (in your purse, pocket, or bra), it doesn’t hurt to cleanse them when you get home, especially if someone else has handled them. Crystals that you use for decor should take a once-a-month trip to the ~crystal spa~.

How do you cleanse your crystals?

There are lots of ways to cleanse your crystals. Here are a few:

• Run them under a faucet for a minute, submerge them in clean water, and pat them dry.
• To banish any clingy bad vibes, cover your crystal in brown rice. Yep, just like a broken phone. (Make sure you get rid of the rice afterward.)
• Leave your crystal on a windowsill, in natural light, from dusk until dawn. That way, they’ll get a cleansing dose of both sunlight and moonlight.
• Submerge your crystal pals in a bowl of water and rock salt for a few hours to super-cleanse them.
• If you have a giant crystal that’s difficult to move around or just a large collection (jeal), you can try sound cleansing. Sound a single tone or pitch (by chanting or using a tuning fork, a singing bowl, or even a cute lil bell) near your pals for 5 to 10 minutes.

Then your crystals are cleansed and ready for action, bb!

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What about charging your crystals?

Whatever you do with your crystals, they will eventually (a) pick up negative vibes (and need cleansing) and (b) run out of energy (and need recharging), just like a battery. Therefore, we need to cleanse the crystal and then charge it. Cleansing removes bad vibes, and charging restores a crystal’s natural power and attributes. You need both to get your crystals in the best shape possible!

What’s the best way to charge your crystals?

The good news is that the easiest way to cleanse AND charge your crystals at the same time is…SUNLIGHT. Leave them out in daylight on a windowsill for 30 minutes (even on a cloudy day), and the Sun will do the job. Some people like to charge their crystals under the light of a Full Moon, although not everyone thinks this is a potent enough power to charge a crystal.

If you have a large crystal cluster (particularly quartz, selenite, or amethyst), you can charge that, then place smaller crystals (like tumbled stones or jewelry) on it to absorb the cluster’s energy and recharge. (But then you have to cleanse and recharge your cluster too, so, yeah, maybe sunlight is easiest!)