Black Salt Tarot Review

From the get go, Logan is a dear friend whom I weekly voice note about Drag Reality eps, writing fiction, and of course, tarot. On the podcast, I’ve reviewed their decks before and they’ve even been a guest host for a few of my favorite eps, The Wooden Tarot and The Citadel Oracle. There are reasons these eps are some of the longest in Wildly Tarot history! Logan is such an amazing person and talking with them about tarot is always a good time.

In pivoting to solo reviews, I wanted to review a deck that I adored and was familiar with before perhaps getting into spicy decks that would be controversial. Thus, Black Salt Tarot was the perfect fit for what I wanted to use for my solo debut.

Description of Black Salt Tarot (from the etsy page) Inspired by fantasy novels, video games, anime, nature, and the queer experience, the Black Salt Tarot is a thoughtful deck that features rainbow holographic foil artwork printed on pitch black card backgrounds.

This isn’t your average RWS clone or pip deck. It’s a glimmering deck that draws on the RWS Tarot system while offering its own nuanced view of the cards. And while the Minor Arcana cards are illustrated in the pip style, each card contains visual clues as to their meanings, making for captivating pip artwork.

The card stock itself is a beautiful 350 GSM, Matte, with anti-scuff finish so that allows for the rainbow foil as shown in pictures to reflect beautifully in the light. As mentioned in the episode itself, I’ve used other matte black decks with foiled illustrations before but none of them can compare to Logan’s stunning way of using blank space and the way the foil is printed on the cards. The cardstock itself is really nice to shuffle because while they’re as tall as normal tarot cards, they’re a little bit slimmer allowing the shuffle to be absolutely delightful.

The deck itself comes with 85-fucking cards to mix and match to your own numeral and naming preferences. Strength / Justice are the numeric options and Foritude instead of Strength is also an option. Justice also comes with two options, one depicting a guillotine and the other a ‘404 not found’ page.

Additonally the only bonus card in the deck is the ‘Happy Squirrel’ card. A cheeky tradition amongst tarot artists in reference to a Simpsons episode where a Happy Squirrel card appeared in a tarot reading.

The guidebook in the Black Salt Tarot is nothing like a normal ‘little white book’ as it is a hefty 110 page tome that in my opinion is the best format and outlining I could ask of a guidebook. Each card has the title, a small blurb describing the nature or intention of the artwork, meanings that includes keywords, a Deeper look that dives into more depths of what the card means, a prompt that could be used for journaling or reflection, Astrological correspondence, and my favorite part of the guidebook, a Creator’s Lens where we finally get a look at artistic choices and how thought came into what is depicted on the cards.

The name changes in the deck are as follows (in no particular order):

Temperance >> Balance
Hierophant >> Pedagog
Magician >> Mage
Hanged Man >> Hanging
High Priestess >> Priestess
Judgement >> Calling
Wheel of Fortune >> Wheel

The Court Cards in this deck are some of my favorite mostly because of Logan’s viewpoint of the Court Cards to be cards of action and not just passive personalities or signifying people. In this deck the card faces themselves are just labeled “King, Queen, Knight, and Page” as the figure is holding the object of their suit in their hand but in the book they are accompanied by their suit. (I.E. “King of Bottles”).

In the episode I neglected to mention the spreads, but I am so thrilled that Logan skipped over the typical “Celtic Cross Spread” and “Past Present Future” tiredness we see in 99% of tarot guidebooks. They have 4 insightful and ingenius ‘salt’ themed spreads named “Salt Cure”, “Salt Bath”, “Salt Scrub” and “Salt Sister”.

Favorite cards of mine are discussed in the episode, but I’ve uploaded pictures of a few for your viewing pleasure. As always though, Logan’s choices are extremely thoughtful in conveying tarot in sensitive ways that are not culurally problematic and are honestly just fun with some of the fantasy/gaming elements they include in the deck.

The card that I drew as my relationship with the deck was the 3 of Swords…which is rude and it calls me out…but geeze Logan!

You can follow Logan on Instagram and purchase this deck and many of their other amazing creations from their Etsy Shop . Also next month they’re launching their Pink Sugar Oracle, so keep an eye out for that release very soon!

(This review accompanies the Black Salt Tarot episode for Wildly Tarot Podcast}