Skincare Secrets: 5 Asian herbs you need to know
updated the 6 October 2015 à 22:52
Could herbs be the key to unlocking the secret to perfect skin? We find out more about the beauty of these potent plants.
You would have probably noticed the buzz surrounding Asian beauty brands in the recent years but what exactly makes them so special? The answer lies in the ingredients!
So many Asian ingredients are used in skincare and makeup products these days that even products from the West have started to follow suit. In fact, Bobbi Brown’s latest Intensive Skin Serum Foundation makes use of pouplar Asian herbs such as Cordyceps Mushroom extracts, Lychee extracts and Bamboo Grass in its list of ingredients.
Specific Asian herbs are used to combat different skincare concerns. It all boils down to the theory of yin (cool energy) and yang (hot energy). When an individual’s yin and yang are equal, the body’s life force or chi is able to flow more efficiently. Therefore skincare products are formulated based on a simple formula – replenish the yin and balance the yang.
Unlike chemical based skincare which work on the surface, products which use Asian herbs are created on the belief that great skin starts with great digestion. Therefore, the various herbs are selected to balance the energy of your body’s earth (i.e. your stomach energy). This has resulted in different types of skincare products which can be applied topically or even ingested for maximum benefits.
For example an individual with acne prone skin will have an excess of yang (hot energy) and should look for topical herbs such as Yu Zhu to include in his or her skincare routine. So let us take you on the road with our round up of the 5 most popular and powerful Asian herbs used as skincare ingredients in the gallery up top.
With about 600 herbs in use today, we can certainly expect to see more products being formulated with these herbs as key ingredients to solve our skincare woes.
Perin Sidhu
