If you’re lucky enough to have citrine, you need to know how to cleanse and charge your crystal.
Citrine can be cleansed with any of the four natural elements: earth, fire, wind, or water. Put citrine in healthy soil, in the smoke of a burning smudge or incense stick, in your own breath, or in water to purify and reenergize the crystal.
In fact, there are many ways to cleanse and charge citrine, and you may want to try a few of them or set up your own crystal charging station. Read on for all 12 methods, with step-by-step instructions on how to get the most from your cleansing ritual.
By the end of this post, you’ll have 12 different ways to cleanse and charge citrine.
Cleanse and charge citrine with…
Meditation and visualization
To cleanse citrine with visualization, take a good look at your crystal to get an idea of its shape and color.
Close your hand with the citrine in it. Then close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, coming back to your center and forgetting about the outside world.
Now picture the crystal in your hand. See the crystal’s shape and color in your mind. Keep picturing it until you have a clear view of it in your mind’s eye.
Visualize clean, clear spring water washing over the crystal. The stream can be as strong or gentle as you wish, and it can wash the crystal for as long as you are comfortable with the practice.
Once the crystal has been “washed,” picture it rising from the stream into pure, warm sunlight. Try to see the water beads of negativity evaporating from the crystal, until all that’s left is a shiny, cleansed crystal in your hand.
Soil
Mother Nature and the Earth are wonderful crystal cleansers.
Cleanse citrine by placing it in soil, either in the ground where there is good plant growth or in a plant pot with a healthy plant.
Cover the crystal with a light dusting of soil, so you cannot see it. You want the soil to touch all parts of the crystal, to absorb any negativity and to protect it.
Don’t put your crystal anywhere a child or animal might find it and swallow it.
Leave your crystal in the soil for at least 24 hours before rinsing it in warm water and patting it dry.
Smudging
A sage smudge is most popular for cleansing, especially these white sage sticks, but you can also use smudges made from Palo Santo wood, cedar, sweetgrass, juniper, or yerba santa.
These handmade floral smudge kits from Amazon make the crystal cleansing that much more beautiful.
To cleanse citrine with a smudge:
- Go outside or into a well-ventilated room, where the smoke won’t bother you.
- Light the smudge with a wooden match (these are the most beautiful wooden matches I’ve ever seen).
- Gently blow out the flame, making sure that the smudge keeps on smoking.
- Hold your crystal in the smudge’s smoke, turning it over and circling the smudge around the crystal to make sure the smoke touches each side of the citrine.
If you have a deluxe smudging kit, blow the smoke over your crystal with the feather to represent the element of air passing over your crystal.
- Do this for as long as your intuition tells you to do so, but make sure the smoke touches each part of the crystal at least three times.
- Once you’re done, let the smudge stick burn to the end or put it out in sand.
- Sprinkle any ashes from the smudging process on the ground outside, so the soil can absorb the old energy back into the earth.
Incense
You can cleanse citrine with the smoke from incense, much like you use the smoke from a smudge stick.
Choose any incense that you love – many people enjoy the smell of cedar incense blocks, white sage, frankincense and myrrh, or organic sandalwood incense.
If you want to use a candle’s smoke instead, try this magnificent pure white sage smudge candle.
To cleanse citrine with incense, light the incense stick and gently blow out the flame.
Hold your crystal in the incense smoke and slowly turn it over three times, to allow the smoke enough time to cleanse the crystal.
This should take about a minute to do, but you can leave it in the smoke for longer if you feel the crystal needs extra cleansing.
If you burn your incense in a covered holder, like this handmade distressed wood box, place your citrine crystals inside the box, light the incense, close the lid, and leave your crystals inside to be cleansed by the smoke.
Breath
Your own breath can be very powerful when it comes to crystal cleansing.
To cleanse citrine with your breath, sit down with the crystal in your hand. Close your eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Once you are completely calm, imagine a bright, warm light around yourself and your crystal. Slowly open your eyes and bring your open hands with your crystal close to your mouth.
Continue to breathe slowly, taking in air through your nose. Exhale strongly through your mouth, directly onto the crystal. Make your breaths intentional and imagine the light that is surrounding you passing through your breath and over your crystal.
Turn your crystal over with each breath, to make sure that you breathe on each side at least once.
Do this for as long as you feel you should, but you can stop after about four full breaths if that is enough for you.
Water
Citrine can go in water, like rainwater, a stream, or water from the faucet, but the crystal shouldn’t be left in any water or liquids for longer than 24 hours. If it is, it could become dull or start getting small cracks in it.
Don’t ever put citrine in salt water or sea water as salt is corrosive and can damage the crystal over time.
Place citrine in a bowl of water and leave it overnight. Always choose a bowl or container made from a natural material like glass, if possible. Don’t ever use a metal bowl for crystal cleansing.
You can also put the crystal in moving water, such as under a running faucet, in a stream, or out in the rain for a few minutes to a few hours.
It’s believed that running water washes away harmful and negative energy, and takes it back into the earth where it is healed.
Once you’ve cleansed your crystal with water, pat it dry with a clean cloth.
Sunlight
The right amount of sunlight can have a wonderful cleansing and energizing effect on citrine, but too much direct sunlight for too long can make the color in the crystal fade or change.
To keep your crystal cleansed and preserve its color, place it out in a sunny spot at dawn or in the morning before 9 am, when the sun’s rays become harsher. Don’t touch your crystal during this time.
Leave the crystal out in the sun for no more than an hour and, if you can, place it on the ground for better cleansing.
Moonlight
The moon’s rays are a wonderful way to cleanse citrine.
Click here to check when there will be a full moon or a waning moon in your area – you’ll need to search for your city in the top right search bar.
Once you find the moon phases for your area, look for the next full moon or waning moon, as these are the best times to cleanse a crystal with moonlight.
A full moon is when the entire moon is visible, so you see a bright, complete circle of the moon. A waning moon comes after a full moon, when the moon starts looking smaller in the sky.
Place your citrine crystal outside at sunset, or under a full moon or waning moon, to be cleansed.
It’s best to put the crystal in direct moonlight and on the ground where negative energy can be absorbed.
Leave it out there overnight if you can, but be sure to bring it in before the sun gets bright and hot the next morning.
Sound
The idea here is to gently push negative energy away from the crystal with vibrations from a sound that you make.
To cleanse citrine with sound, place the crystal on a table or on the ground no more than 3 feet away from you. Keep the area between you and the crystal open, so sound vibrations can move freely and cover the crystal. Sit down and start chanting or playing an instrument.
You can either chant by making the “om” sound over and over, play a singing bowl like this one from Amazon, use meditation chimes, or play cymbals. You could even combine two of these by chanting and using one of the instruments.
Continue making the sound for a few minutes for effective cleansing.
Selenite crystal
Selenite is a cleansing crystal that can be used to cleanse citrine quickly and easily.
To cleanse citrine, put it in a selenite crystal bowl. These bowls are known as “crystal charging stations” because they release negative energy from all crystals, including citrine. Keep one in your home and use it to cleanse and recharge crystals as needed.
If you don’t have a selenite bowl, put your citrine on selenite crystals for the same cleansing effect. Try to get enough selenite sticks so you can wrap them around your citrine below, on the sides, and on top, so the selenite touches all sides of the citrine.
If you don’t have selenite on hand, replace the selenite with another cleansing crystal like amethyst, carnelian, or black obsidian. Just make sure there is more of the cleansing crystal than the citrine that needs to be cleansed.
Himalayan salt
Salt has a wonderful purifying effect. It’s best to cleanse citrine with Himalayan salt, the ancient pink salt from the base of the Himalaya mountains.
Fill a shallow bowl or glass with pure Himalayan crystal salt or larger salt stones. Bury the citrine in the salt and leave it there for at least 24 hours, or longer if you prefer.
This bowl of salt can be used many times to cleanse or store your citrine. Simply replace the salt when you feel that it is no longer effective.
Once a crystal has been cleansed with salt, rinse it under clean water to remove salt residue and pat it dry with a soft cloth.
If you have a pure Himalayan salt lamp, place the citrine next to the lamp and let the crystal bathe in the light from the lamp for several hours. Then turn the crystal over to expose the other side to the lamp’s light.
Brown rice
Brown rice can be used to cleanse citrine. Simply bury the crystal in a shallow bed of dry brown rice and leave it there overnight, or longer if you feel it is necessary.
The brown rice will absorb all the negative energy from the crystal. Thank it and throw out the brown rice once your crystal has been recharged.
Personally, I find this cleansing method with brown rice to be very wasteful so I left it till last. I don’t like throwing away food or wasting it. My favorite cleansing and charging methods are smudging, moonlight, and water, combined with soil, for the most natural and healing cleansing with the least wasteful impact.
If you want to know more about citrine, here’s my guide with everything you need to know about this crystal.
