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"  On a sunny summer day, there&amp;#039;s surely no place in the world quite as beautiful as the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, on the outskirts of London. But this past January, as a tour trolley\u2014equipped with plastic siding to protect passengers from the bitter wind\u2014snaked through the park&amp;#039;s meandering lanes, the effect was pretty grim. Branches were mostly bare; a few forlorn-looking geese huddled on the brown patches where grass should be. One tree, however, looked green and robust\u2014and when Monique Simmonds, our garden guide and the director of the Kew Innovation Unit, identified it as a 251-year-old Ginkgo biloba, I stared at its resiliently lush foliage and thought: Whatever that tree has, I want it. I certainly wasn&amp;#039;t the first to feel that way. Ginkgo trees can live thousands of years\u2014one old specimen, in the Shandong region of China, has celebrated its three thousandth birthday\u2014so the species has become a totem of longevity, and its leaves have been used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) since time immemorial to enhance health and memory. More recently, extracts of the plant have been proven to protect skin against UV damage and to boost collagen formation when applied topically; hence ginkgo&amp;#039;s starring role in the Boots Botanics Age Defense range, which was developed in collaboration with scientists at Kew. &amp;quot;I firmly believe,&amp;quot; Simmonds says, &amp;quot;that the same botanicals that have been used medicinally for centuries will turn out to be the future of skin care.&amp;quot; The growing appeal of slathering on wonder ingredients rooted (literally, in ginkgo&amp;#039;s case) in antiquity might stem, in part, from the desire to defuse the pressure of our hectic modern lives. Frazzled urbanites already eagerly embrace alternative approaches to wellness, whether by way of performing Saturday-morning sun salutations or guzzling bottles of kombucha. Products based on gentle anti-aging ingredients that read like a list of superfoods offer a counterpoint to the more aggressive Western approach to skin care and health, just as an acupuncture needle might be seen by some to administer a restorative magic preferable to\u2014if less visible than\u2014that provided by Botox. Sinking into a tub filled with, say, Rituals Wu Wei Organic White Lotus &amp;amp;amp; Green Tea Calming Cream Bath isn&amp;#039;t so much about being eco as it is about being holistic: It&amp;#039;s a moment connected with nature, yes, but perhaps it&amp;#039;s more about connecting with ourselves. Like ginkgo, many herbs that have been traditionally imbibed in teas or tinctures throughout Asia to address various health issues are now being incorporated into anti-aging supercreams. Origins&amp;#039; GinZing collection and SK-II Essential Power Cream feature extracts of different types of ginseng, and most products in the luxe Sulwhasoo range are based on Korean red ginseng (a variety so potent that extracts are available only via prescription in Japan). The plant has been shown to improve alertness, immunity, and physical endurance when consumed; used on the skin, it&amp;#039;s a very potent antioxidant, has anti-inflammatory properties, and boosts blood flow (bingo: glow). Wei East, currently the largest Chinese medicine\u2013inspired skin-care company in \u2028the U.S., showcases rare botanicals such as the exotic-sounding dragon&amp;#039;s blood (found in Wei East&amp;#039;s Dragon Tree Dramatic Lift Face Concentrate and Wei Beauty&amp;#039;s new Dragon Blood Eye Lifting Pads), a red tree resin used for centuries as a wound healer, now confirmed to contain bioactive molecules that help support cell turnover and regeneration. Herb-based Asian skin care, like TCM itself, is all about balance. In theory, when the yin (cool energy) and yang (hot energy) are equal, the body&amp;#039;s life force, or chi, flows most efficiently. Skin types and conditions are therefore classified according to excesses of yin or yang: &amp;quot;Hot&amp;quot; skin is generally prone to acne or irritation, while a dull, lackluster complexion would be considered &amp;quot;cool.&amp;quot; While some of the ultraspecific concepts might sound disconcertingly peculiar to a Western ear\u2014the TCM notion of &amp;quot;nourishing the blood,&amp;quot; for example, or pretty much anything to do with the spleen\u2014the fundamentals relate directly to the way we already think about our skin; only the terminology is different. &amp;quot;Something like yin deficiency sounds esoteric, but it really just means the skin is dry and inflamed,&amp;quot; says New York\u2013based acupuncturist and herbalist Jill Blakeway. &amp;quot;Blood stagnation means you have poor circulation, which can lead to things like dark circles under your eyes. Water accumulation, which we call damp in Chinese medicine, means you&amp;#039;re puffy where you shouldn&amp;#039;t be. And chi deficiency is the lack of elasticity. It&amp;#039;s pretty straightforward: You would use herbs that &amp;#039;heat,&amp;#039; increase blood flow, if you had circulatory problems and you wanted to get things moving, and you would use herbs that &amp;#039;cool,&amp;#039; or have anti-inflammatory properties, if you had problems with inflammation.&amp;quot; While many of the new brands inspired by ancient herbal wisdom focus on the benefits of their active ingredients rather than on yin/yang philosophy, this may change over time as Western women grow even more comfortable with the specific concepts behind this approach to skin care. It will already sound familiar to yogis, given the philosophical similarities between TCM and India&amp;#039;s traditional medicine, ayurveda: Both present treatments based on the five elements (wood, metal, water, fire, and earth in TCM; ether, air, water, fire, and earth in ayurveda) as well as on hot and cold, and both teach that what feeds or balances the body and spirit will do the same for the skin, whether taken internally or applied topically. When ayurvedic skin-care pioneer Pratima Raichur, MD, launched her range in the &amp;#039;80s, she says, &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t use the word ayurveda; I just started by saying that whatever we apply to the skin should be pure enough to eat, because the skin, as the body&amp;#039;s largest organ, will absorb it. Then, as people began to see results, I began to talk about the ancient Indian science of ayurveda, but it was a totally new theory here.&amp;quot; Now, even if most of us don&amp;#039;t know if we&amp;#039;re a Pitta, Vata, or Kapha, we&amp;#039;re familiar with the terms, and rare is the spa that doesn&amp;#039;t offer at least one treatment derived from ayurvedic principles. Regardless of whether the notion of blocked chi will catch on among those of us who are used to labeling\u2014and caring for\u2014our complexions in terms of dryness and oil, or fine lines and pigmentation, rather than simply hot and cold, it&amp;#039;s easy to see the appeal of taking an East-meets-West, nature-meets-science approach to skin care. Products containing time-tested ingredients now being given a state-of-the-art platform in high-tech formulations may offer the best of both worlds. &amp;quot;The key aspect of Chinese medicine is maintaining harmony with nature,&amp;quot; Simmonds says. &amp;quot;And the modern approach to this philosophy in the beauty industry is finding the right balance between natural ingredients and the science necessary to make the ingredients work effectively.&amp;quot; Whether or not you go in for yin and yang, that&amp;#039;s one kind of balance that always makes sense. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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