Is Gotu Kola Harmful to the Skin?

Centella asiatica is non-irritating and safe for the skin.

Modern research has shown that Centella asiatica nourishes the skin, exerts anti-inflammatory and soothing effects, and stimulates turnover of deep-layer skin cells. It not only tightens the junction between the epidermis and dermis—thereby enhancing skin softness—but also helps improve skin laxity, restoring smoothness and elasticity. Thus, Centella asiatica is non-irritating and safe for the skin.

Centella asiatica is both edible and medicinal. As a traditional Chinese herb, it possesses heat-clearing, detoxifying, dampness-resolving, and swelling-reducing properties. Clinically, it is used to treat conditions such as damp-heat jaundice, carbuncles and boils, traumatic injuries, arsenic poisoning, mushroom poisoning, summer-heat syndrome, infectious hepatitis, and epidemic meningococcal meningitis.

However, Centella asiatica is cold in nature; therefore, it should not be consumed by pregnant women or individuals with deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach.