ABSTRACT
Herbal drugs traditionally used in medicine and skin care consist of herbs and spices from higher plants, thalli from lower botanical organisms, microbial biomasses, and the various extracts that can be obtained from these sources. These products generally contain complex mixtures of chemical compounds, including both organic and inorganic components such as mineral salts. In some cases, the biological properties of herbs are due to one or a few chemical principles, but in other cases these properties are due to the synergistic actions of many compounds of very different chemical nature. The possibility of obtaining specific therapeutic effects starting from a complex mixture of natural compounds is fundamental in very ancient herbalistic and medical practices, such as Chinese traditional medicine and Ayurveda, and is currently considered a key element of modern herbalism and skin care.28,34 This kind of approach is also sometimes opposed to the one-drug-one-target paradigm that is often applied in the pharmaceutical field.
