TCM in Cosmetics: Back to the Future

By Ally Dai

How big of a role can Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) play in cosmetics? Many TCM experts I’ve interviewed say the potential is enormous because the materials are so effective.
For example, one TCM derma professional relayed the following story. His client, a 40-year-old woman, returned to his office to treat blemishes that had been successfully treated months before. After careful examination, the professional finally asked the woman a question that seemed irrelevant to her skin: “Is there any issue that is causing you to be angry?”
The answer was yes. Turns out, there was a family issue that led to numerous sleepless nights and the outbreak of the skin problem. As a result, psychological counseling, rather than topical and oral medications, became the major treatment for her skin problem.
When pressed to find out how could detect such a cause for the customer’s skin problem, the professional referred to the basic principle of TCM.

“The facial area where the woman’s skin problem occurred happened to indicate something wrong with her liver, which is the organ vulnerable to inappropriate anger based on TCM theory. Plus, she also displayed an unstable emotional state,” he explained. “Physical health and emotion are intimately connected.”

All About Being Holistic
Yes, the core of TCM theory is all about being holistic; i.e., the human body is always intricately connected to the external environment. Based on the notion of harmony and balance, Traditional Chinese Medicine is actually a very vital holistic system of health care with its own unique ways of prevention and treatment.
Focusing on adjusting and boosting the human body’s own immune system, it emphasizes prevention and tends to use the combination of different ways of treatment including diet and medicine, as well as acupuncture, massage and exercise.
When it comes to TCM, herbals, as well as animal and mineral products and even human ones, all can be utilized. Some of the animal or human products would seem rather strange in western eyes, such as cow’s gallstone and antelope’s horn, or even unacceptable like human placenta. But nowadays, many of these non-plant-based materials are either no longer in use or are strictly constrained by regulations, due to ecological, legal and health concerns.
Herbals are the most common raw material category in TCM. Under the basic TCM application principle, the origin, harvesting, processing and storing of herbal materials should all be dealt with great caution by following the instructions handed down from ancient times, on the ground that these factors can determine the quality and efficacy of botanical ingredients.
Another general principle of TCM application is the synergistic effect. Apart from the efficacy of individual primary ingredients, the final efficacy of a formula relies upon the interactions between different ingredients; therefore, their combination should be carefully selected to enhance the desired effect, which requires better understanding of action mechanisms and overall effects.
Ancient Herbals, Modern Applications
Catering to the natural green trend in the global market, Chinese traditional herbals also account for the vast majority of TCM-derived materials currently used in cosmetics. In an attempt to differentiate their products, an increasing number of beauty brands, both international and domestic, are borrowing botanical ingredients from TCM.
The most common are ginseng, paeonia, pomegranate, white tea, Centella asiatica, Radix Astragali, Angelica root, Rhodiola, Saus-sureainvolucrate and Perilla, according to Dr. Li Jinhua, vice director of Guangzhou General Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Two of these, ginseng and paeonia, also happen to be twNike Magista Obra Low