How to Cleanse Your Aura: 7 Methods Compared, and How to Choose
Seven ways to cleanse your aura — salt, smoke, selenite, shower, sound, breath and egg — compared by time, cost and situation, with an honest note on what an aura is.
You walked out of a crowded room, a hard phone call or a week that would not end, and you feel coated in it. "Cleanse your aura" is the phrase people reach for, and the internet answers with forty methods and no way to choose between them.
Contents
To cleanse your aura, pick one method and do it with full attention: a warm salt bath, a slow pass of incense smoke from head to feet, a selenite wand swept down the body, a shower with a clear intention, or five minutes of sound or breath. Finish by grounding — feet on the floor, a glass of water. Once a week is plenty.
The detailed modern aura model, with layers and a colour key, was largely shaped by Theosophical writers such as C. W. Leadbeater (Man Visible and Invisible, 1902).
Kirlian photographs record corona discharge whose appearance depends strongly on moisture, not on a measurable energy field (Pehek et al., Science, 1976).
Evidence that the skin absorbs meaningful magnesium from Epsom salt baths is weak (Gröber et al., Nutrients, 2017).
Almost every aura-cleansing method shares one structure: stop, mark the moment with a sensory act, and close; the method matters less than the attention and a consistent closing act.
A short method attached to an existing habit, such as a shower, is more likely to be kept up than an elaborate one reserved for a crisis.
An aura cleanse removes negative energy, heals illness or can be confirmed by an instrument or aura camera.
VERIFIED = verifiable in scientific or official sources · TRADITIONAL = historically or culturally recorded · LIVED PRACTICE = widely practiced, experiential knowledge · NOT PROVEN = spiritual interpretation, not scientifically established.
This guide does the choosing. Seven methods that practitioners actually use, what each one asks of you in minutes and money, which situation it suits — and, because we would rather you trusted us than the other way round, a plain account of what an aura is, where the idea comes from and what no camera has ever measured.
The short answer
To cleanse your aura, pick one method and do it with full attention: a warm salt bath, a slow pass of incense smoke from head to feet, a selenite wand swept down the body, a shower with a clear intention, or five minutes of sound or breath. Finish by grounding — feet on the floor, a glass of water. Once a week is plenty.
What an aura is, and where the idea comes from
An aura, in spiritual practice, is the field of energy said to surround a living body — usually described as layered, coloured and responsive to mood, health and the people around you. The word is Greek for breeze, and the idea of light around holy figures is ancient: halos, mandorlas, the glow around the Buddha. But the modern, detailed aura — seven layers, specific colours with specific meanings, something you can dirty and clean — is much younger than most pages admit.
It was largely built by the Theosophical Society at the turn of the twentieth century. Charles Webster Leadbeater's Man Visible and Invisible (1902) printed full-colour plates of the auras he said he saw, with a colour key that is still recognisable in almost every aura chart online today. In 1911 the London physician Walter Kilner published The Human Atmosphere, claiming the aura could be seen through glass screens stained with the dye dicyanin. Both books were enormously influential. Neither has held up as evidence. What they did do was give the practice its vocabulary — and it is that vocabulary, not a measurement, that you are working with when you cleanse.
That is not a reason to stop. It is a reason to be clear about what the practice is: a deliberate way of marking the boundary between what happened to you and who you are. If you want the colour system itself, we have unpacked it in aura colors and what each one is said to mean, and the perception side in how to see an aura.
How do you know if your aura needs cleansing?
Practitioners describe it as a feeling rather than a sign: heaviness after being around a lot of people, a mood that is not yours, irritability that arrived with a particular conversation, sleeping badly in a space that felt charged, or simply the sense that you are carrying the day around after it has ended. The most honest checklist is also the shortest:
- You feel worse after a specific person, place or event — and not before it.
- The feeling does not match anything you can name in your own life right now.
- Rest alone has not shifted it.
If the heaviness is constant, has lasted weeks, or comes with changes in sleep, appetite or interest in things you usually enjoy, an aura cleanse is not the right tool. That is worth taking to a doctor or a counselor, and there is no conflict between doing that and keeping a practice.
Seven ways to cleanse your aura, compared
Every method below is a variation on the same three moves: stop, mark the moment with something sensory, and close. They differ in what the sensory part is — water, smoke, stone, sound, breath — and in how much time and setup they ask for. Choose by situation, not by which sounds most powerful.
| Method | Best for | Time | What you need | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salt bath | End of a draining week; after grief, conflict, a funeral | 30–40 min | Bathtub, 1–2 cups of salt | A few dollars |
| Shower cleanse | Daily reset; no tub; right after work | 5–10 min | A shower and an intention | Nothing |
| Smoke (incense or herbs) | After guests, a hard conversation, a crowded event | 5 min | Incense or a bundle, a fire-safe dish, an open window | From about $8 |
| Selenite sweep | Quick, smokeless, shared homes, sensitive lungs | 2–3 min | A selenite wand or stick | From about $5 |
| Sound | Mornings, meditation, when words are too much | 5–10 min | Bell, bowl, or simply your voice | Nothing to $60+ |
| Breath and visualization | Anywhere — office, car, plane | 3–5 min | Nothing | Nothing |
| Egg cleanse | When you want a traditional folk form, done slowly | 15 min | A raw egg, a glass of water | Under $1 |
Costs are rough ranges for basic materials. Nothing on this list works better for being more expensive.
How to cleanse your aura with salt
Salt is the oldest cleansing material in almost every folk tradition that has one, and a salt bath is the most thorough version of an aura cleanse because it takes the longest and removes you from everything else while it happens. Dissolve one to two cups of Epsom salt or coarse sea salt in a warm bath. Before you get in, say — aloud or silently — what you are letting go of. Soak for twenty minutes, then pull the plug while you are still in the water and stay until it has drained. That last detail is the ritual: you watch the day leave.
No tub? Rub a small handful of coarse salt mixed with a little oil over your arms and legs in the shower, top to bottom, and rinse. Which salt matters less than people claim; we compared the options in which salt to use in witchcraft. For a fuller bath with herbs and a protective close, see our spiritual bath for cleansing and protection.
One honest note: Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, and it is often sold with the claim that the skin absorbs meaningful magnesium from the bath. A 2017 review in Nutrients found the evidence for that too thin to support. Soak for the warmth and the ritual, not for a supplement.
How to cleanse your aura with smoke
Smoke cleansing works as a cleanse because it is visible: you can see where it goes. Light a stick of incense or a small herb bundle, let the flame catch and blow it out so it smoulders, and hold a fire-safe dish underneath. Starting at the crown of your head, draw the smoke down the front of the body, along each arm, down each leg and around to the back as far as you can reach. Some people finish at the soles of the feet; some finish by wafting smoke toward an open window.
Open the window before you start, not after. Keep smoke away from pets and birds — we have set out the specifics in is incense safe for cats, dogs and birds — and if you use a bundle, learn to burn and extinguish it properly first. White sage has a sourcing problem and a closed-tradition context worth knowing about; rosemary, cedar, lavender and resin incense do the same job without either.
If you want to work with this yourself, this is what we use
Selenite Aura Cleansing Mist — White Tea & Ginger (2 oz)
For the days when smoke is not an option — an office, a rented room, a sleeping partner, a cat. Infused with selenite powder, a clean white-tea scent, three sprays around the head and shoulders and you are done. It marks the moment; the attention is still yours to bring.
$10.00
See the mistHow to cleanse your aura with selenite
Selenite is the stone most associated with aura work, largely because of how it looks — white, fibrous, with a silky light that runs along its length — and because in crystal practice it is the stone used to clear other stones. Hold a wand or stick a few inches from the body. Starting above the head, sweep slowly downward in long strokes: down the front, down each side, down each arm, down each leg. At the end of each stroke, flick the wrist outward, away from you, as if shaking off water. Two to three minutes is enough.
Two practical facts. Most "selenite" sold in wands is technically satin spar gypsum — the same mineral, a different crystal habit; we explain the difference in selenite vs satin spar. And it is soft and water-soluble: never rinse it, never use it in the bath. Its smokelessness is the whole appeal for people in shared homes or with sensitive lungs.
The sweep order, whichever tool you use
Smoke, selenite, a feather, your own flat hands a few inches off the skin — the direction is the same in nearly every tradition that uses a sweep. Top to bottom, centre outward, finish at the ground.
Can you cleanse your aura in the shower?
Yes, and for most people it is the method they will actually keep doing, because it attaches to something they already do every day. Stand under the water and, before you wash, spend one full minute doing nothing else. Picture the water running through the space around you as well as over your skin, carrying the day downward. Some people turn the temperature a little cooler for the final thirty seconds as a clear ending. The cleanse is not the water. It is the minute of attention you did not give yourself before.
How to cleanse your aura with sound and breath
Sound is the traditional answer when you need something that works without materials. Ring a bell or strike a singing bowl once and listen until the sound is completely gone; repeat three times. Clapping around the body — above the head, beside each ear, in front of the chest — is a folk version of the same thing, common in space clearing. If you want to go further with bowls, we covered choosing and playing one in how to play and choose a singing bowl.
Breath needs nothing at all. Sit or stand with both feet on the floor. Breathe in for four counts, imagining clean light entering at the crown; hold for four; breathe out for six, imagining whatever you picked up leaving through the soles of your feet into the ground. Ten rounds. The longer exhale is the part that does the physical work — a slow out-breath is one of the simplest ways to calm the body down — and it is why this method travels so well: office, car, bathroom stall at a wedding.
How to cleanse your aura with an egg
The egg cleanse, or limpia con huevo, comes from Mexican and wider Latin American folk healing: a raw egg is passed over the body from head to feet and then cracked into a glass of water to be read. It is an open practice, widely taught within families, and it is the slowest and most deliberate method here. It also has the most misinformation attached to its readings. Before you interpret what you see in the glass, read our egg cleanse interpretation guide — most of the famous signs turn out to measure how old the egg is.
How long to spend on each method
If you only remember one thing: a short method you actually do beats a long one you save for a crisis.
Typical minutes per method
Minutes are typical practice lengths, not requirements.
Temple Tip — close the cleanse, every time
Most people who say an aura cleanse did nothing for them skipped the ending. The cleanse is the clearing; the close is what tells your body it is over. Choose one small closing act and use it after every method: drink a full glass of water, press your bare feet into the floor for ten breaths, or put on one piece of jewelry you only wear afterwards. Keep it the same every time. After a month the closing act on its own starts to carry the feeling, and that is when you have a practice rather than a remedy.
Which aura cleanse fits your situation?
Pick what is closest to where you are right now.
How often should you cleanse your aura?
Once a week is the rhythm most practitioners settle on, with an extra cleanse after anything obviously heavy: a funeral, a hospital visit, a fight, a packed event, a long flight. Daily is fine if the method is short — a shower minute or a breath cycle. What tends to go wrong is the opposite pattern: cleansing several times a day because you never feel clean. At that point the cleansing has become a way of managing anxiety rather than an act of care, and it is worth noticing that and talking to someone about it.
How to cleanse and protect your aura afterwards
Cleansing takes something off; protection is what people do so less sticks next time. The simplest protective practice is a visualization after the close: picture a boundary a hand's width from your skin — light, a membrane, a wall — and decide that it lets through what is yours and holds back what is not. Carrying a protective stone, wearing an evil-eye charm or anointing the wrists with oil are physical versions of the same decision. If a particular person keeps leaving you drained, the more useful work is often in spotting energy vampires and setting boundaries rather than in cleansing more often.
Can you cleanse someone else's aura?
You can, with their clear permission — the sweep and the smoke both work on another person, and many traditions do cleanses for family members. Ask first, tell them what you are going to do, and let them stop you. Do not do it on someone asleep, drunk or unaware, and do not do it to a child without their parent's agreement. A cleanse done without consent stops being care and starts being something done to someone.
Voices from practice
We do not put invented names or invented quotes in this section. What follows is what recurs across the public material we read for this guide — practitioner writing, open discussion threads and the questions people actually search for — paraphrased:
- The method people stick with is almost never the most elaborate one. It is the one attached to an existing habit — the shower, the commute, the kettle.
- Practitioners who have done this for years rarely talk about a dirty aura. They talk about a day they have not put down yet.
- The most common beginner mistake mentioned in threads is not doing it wrong. It is doing it so rarely that each attempt has to carry too much.
What we don't promise
- No method here heals anything. An aura cleanse is not a treatment for illness, depression, anxiety or grief, and nothing here should delay seeing a doctor or counselor.
- We cannot show you your aura. Kirlian photographs record corona discharge that changes with skin moisture, and commercial aura cameras translate hand-sensor readings into colours. Neither measures an energy field, and neither can confirm a cleanse.
- No product cleanses you. The mist above is what we reach for when smoke is not an option. It marks the moment; the attention is yours.
- We will not tell you someone has damaged your aura. If you are being told that by a person asking for money to fix it, read that as a warning sign.
Practically: how to work with this
- Choose one short method for everyday and one long method for heavy weeks. Two, not seven.
- Attach the short one to a habit you already have — shower, commute, the first coffee.
- Name what you are putting down before you begin, in a sentence.
- Work top to bottom, whatever the tool, and finish at the ground.
- Close the same way every time — water, feet on the floor, one piece of jewelry.
- Keep a two-line note for a month: what you cleansed after, how you felt the next morning. Patterns show up quickly, and they are usually about people and places rather than about method.
Frequently asked questions about cleansing your aura
How do I know if my aura needs cleansing?
How often should you cleanse your aura?
Can you cleanse your aura in the shower?
Does salt cleanse your aura?
How do you cleanse your aura with selenite?
Can you cleanse your aura without sage?
What should you do after an aura cleanse?
Can you cleanse someone else's aura?
Sources & further reading
- C. W. Leadbeater, Man Visible and Invisible (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1902) — the colour plates behind most modern aura charts.
- Walter J. Kilner, The Human Atmosphere, or the Aura Made Visible by the Aid of Chemical Screens (London, 1911) — the dicyanin-screen method.
- J. O. Pehek, H. J. Kyler, D. L. Faust, “Image Modulation in Corona Discharge Photography,” Science 194 (1976): 263–270 — moisture as the main variable in Kirlian images. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- U. Gröber, T. Werner, J. Vormann, K. Kisters, “Myth or Reality—Transdermal Magnesium?” Nutrients 9, no. 8 (2017): 813 — on Epsom salt absorption claims.
- “Aura (paranormal),” overview of the concept's history and the evidence. wikipedia.org
- Google Search autocomplete and People Also Ask, US, September 2026 — used to scope which methods and questions this guide answers.
Related reading: how to see an aura; aura colors and their meanings; and, for smokeless options, the ritual oils and sprays and selenite collections.