• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.277-282
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• 2008

Oriental herbs are reported as having potent functions for preventing many types of diseases. They also appear to have positive effects and potential capabilities for skin care. Among the many oriental herbs that are available, we chose to analyze four medicinal herbs, Korean red ginseng, Artemisia capillaries Thunb, Schizonepeta tenuifolia Briq, and Foeniculum vulgare Mill, because all are popular and considered as favorite medicinal plants in Korea. Extracts of the herbs were obtained by various methods such as using distilled water, ethyl ether, methanol, ethanol, benzene, 1-butanol, and chloroform. Nine phytochemicals were detected in the extracts: maltol, adenosine, b-pinene, menthone, pulegone, limonene, anethole, estragole, and fenchone, which reportedly have multi-functionalities. All phytochemicals were analyzed quantitatively by various chromatographic techniques such as HPLC and gas chromatography-mass (GC-MS) spectrometry. This article also presents the optimum conditions for extracting these 9 targeted phytochemical compounds that were derived from 4 popular oriental herbs, which could be useful for the efficient preparation of each phytochemical.