The distinction
Cleansing clears or removes: it deals with what is already there, whether you read that as residue, atmosphere or your own state of mind. Protection guards a person, object or space in the moment. Warding is ongoing: a boundary intended to hold when you are not paying attention. Most 'my cleansing didn't work' problems are actually one of these doing another one's job.
Smoke cleansing
Burning a herb, resin or incense and moving the smoke through a space is common in modern Wicca and in a great many unrelated cultures. Call it smoke cleansing. Smudging is a specific term from particular Indigenous North American ceremonial traditions and is not a generic synonym; using it that way flattens someone else's living practice. White sage and palo santo both carry supply and appropriation concerns; garden rosemary, bay or ordinary incense do the same job. Ventilate the room, use a heatproof dish, never leave it burning, and keep smoke away from birds, whose respiratory systems are extremely sensitive, as well as from small pets, babies and anyone with asthma.
Cleansing without smoke
Sound: a bell, a clap, a hum. Water: a light mist, a wipe-down, washing your hands. Air: open the windows for two minutes. Light: sunlight across a surface. Physical cleaning, which is not a mystical act and is frequently the effective one. Salt water on a cloth for objects that tolerate it.
Salt, carefully
Salt for boundaries and purification is recorded across an enormous range of cultures. It also kills plants, corrodes metal, wrecks some floor finishes and is genuinely bad for pets in quantity. Indoors, use a small dish rather than a poured line. Outdoors, don't: use stones, a drawn line, or nothing.
Protective charms and folklore
Iron and horseshoes over the door, mirrors turned outward to reflect, hag stones, and rowan and red thread are all recorded in British and Irish folk custom. Witch bottles are archaeologically attested: early modern examples containing pins, hair and urine have been excavated in England. That is genuine folklore, not a lineage of Wiccan practice, and it is worth naming as such.
Eggshell, cascarilla and black salt
Powdered eggshell used protectively appears in several traditions; cascarilla specifically is a term and practice belonging to Afro-Caribbean religions including Santería and Lukumí, and it is not a Wiccan ingredient to borrow casually. Black salt as sold in witchcraft shops is usually salt with ash or charcoal, and the confident histories attached to it are largely modern and unevidenced. Note also that black salt in South Asian cooking, kala namak, is a completely different and edible thing.
Wards, kept sensible
A ward is a decision to maintain a boundary, refreshed occasionally, rather than a permanent forcefield. Two cautions. Protection work is not a substitute for locks, boundaries, leaving a situation, or telling someone. And if your practice is producing more fear than steadiness, scale it back rather than adding more wards. Nobody needs to be frightened into buying protection.
Don't bury the ingredients
Glass, salt, metal, pins and plastic buried in soil are pollution and a hazard to animals and gardeners, and a buried jar is a nuisance for whoever lives there next. Keep charms indoors, or use compostable materials, or dispose of things in the ordinary bin and consider that part of the working.