We augment the usual wp semantics of substitutions with an explicit notion of frame, which allows us to develop a simple selfcontained theory of generalised substitutions outside their usual context of the B Method. We formulate three fundamental healthiness conditions which semantically characterise all substitutions, and from which we are able to derive directly, without need of any explicit further appeal to syntax, a number of familiar properties of substitutions, as well as several new ones specifically concerning frames. In doing so we gain some useful insights about the nature of substitutions, which enables us to resolve some hitherto problematic issues concerning substitutions within the B Method.