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It’s time to make friends with a new plant. Don’t worry, it’s not a complete stranger. Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica) is in the same family as carrots and parsley (Apiaceae). It grows wild in the wetlands of India, Japan, China, Indonesia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and the South Pacific, and has long been an important herb in ancient Indian (Ayurvedic) and Chinese medicine.
Why is it our topic of choice today? Well, its leaves are shaped like hearts, so there’s that. It also happens to provide a wealth of benefits to the skin, which is why it is used in skin care products such as our own. Besides providing anti-aging benefits, it has also been used to solve for different skin types.
Gotu Kola for Anti-Aging
Most signs of aging skin can be traced to two things: the breakdown of the skin’s natural moisture barrier and simply growing older. Because it can tighten and firm your look, gotu kola is an amazing ingredient for preserving and restoring a youthful look to the skin—not to mention its effect on the hair and nails.
You can enjoy these anti-aging results by ingesting gotu kola as a tea or in a capsule, as well as through topical application, which is why it is one of our favorite ingredients to infuse into our products, such as the Anti-Aging Serum, Anti-Aging Eye Cream, and Anti-Aging Facial Oil and Herbal Facial Oil for Normal & Combination Skin.
How We Extract Gotu Kola
The process by which we extract herbs to is quite unique and results in products that are potent and effective.
Most herbal extractions are done using butylene glycol. This significantly decreases the active properties of the plant, creating a product that might boast a high amount of the ingredient but with little effectiveness. Because this molecule is not a participant in your body’s pathways, your skin will not readily absorb butylene glycol. Thus, the active compounds that still are present after the extraction process have a small chance of being incorporated and put to good use.
To extract gotu kola for use in our products, we use a cold press that does not disturb the nutrients and compounds this plant has to offer. We extract using oil, which assimilates easily into your skin (bringing the gotu kola’s nutrients with it). Herb blends are selected in order to create a synergistic effect that increases the effectiveness of all involved. Thus, a truly nourishing product is born.
With modern studies to support ancient wisdom, there appear to be many external and internal benefits to using this herb! Buy it loose leaf and incorporate it into your tea blends, or use it on your skin in our products!
Do you have other uses for Gota Kola? We’d love to know!
By Hope Freije
http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/gotu-kola
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-753-GOTU%20KOLA.aspx?activeIngredientId=753&activeIngredientName=GOTU%20KOLA
http://www.chopra.com/gotu-kola
http://www.healthline.com/natstandardcontent/gotu-kola
https://www.ingredientstodiefor.com/item/Centella_Asiatica_Gotu_Kola_/1374/
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2012/848093/
Very interesting article. Thank you for sharing this information. I was searching for a skin product with high percentage of Centella Asiatica extract (Gotu Kola) and stumbled upon your article. It was interesting to read about your extraction methods and what you had to say about the use of butylene glycol. The few products I’ve seen with Centella Asiatica include butylene glycol and it is very high on their list of ingredients. Could you tell me which one of your products includes Centella Asiatica and what percentage. It would take me too long to find it as I would need to click on each individual product to see the list of ingredients…Please advise.
Hi Milu,
We do use Gotu Kola in almost every product that we have, it is infused into our herbal oils and our aloe along with many other herbs. We aren’t able to share the percentage of the gotu kola used in our skin care, I do apologize for that inconvenience.
Could you email please as I cannot find this on your website
can u please advise where i can purchase cold pressed oil for internal use
Gotu Kola is called ‘pegaga’ in Malaysia…
I usually advised pregnant lady to take this as daily supplements with tumeric to prevent jaundice in their baby after 20 weeks pregnancy..It really work so far..Thanks God for His Creation.