Black Face General Plant Herb for Detox

My friend, a cancer survivor of more than 10 years introduced the benefits of a herb called the Black Face General to be used to detox. The plant is also known as 黑面将军 in Chinese and “pecah beling” in Malay language.

Basically she mentioned that there are 2 types of the Black Face General herb- with the yellow and purple flower variants. It is only the variant that can be safely consumed is the plant that blooms yellow flower. However, the plant seldom flowers- but my friend managed to observe the one time the plant did bloom yellow flowers.

The plant is very easy to plant- with just a cutting and placed on the ground. After sometime, it will grow out into a huge bush that requires constant pruning. What begin as a small innocent looking plant cutting turned into a huge bush like below:

Benefits of the Black Face General herb:

It is good for detox for the liver and digestive system. Sometimes darker skin pigmentation appears on the upper cheek below the eyes which may indicate an overworked liver. My friend have this too and after a few times of taking the herb, the discoloration went off. Much cheaper than expensive skin treatments which I always feel only addressed the surface but do not work on the root cause hence it would not solve the problem.

Another thing is that one may pass out very dark and foul smelling stools after taking this herb. Some people develop diarrhea when they initially take this herb. Even though we may consume adequate fiber through fruits and vegetables…we may be surprised at the layers of rotted foodstuff that gets passed out after taking a detox drink. It is even more scary for those who do not have adequate intake of fiber.

There are anti cancer benefits associated with this herb which is not surprising since the herb helps in toxin elimination from the body. However, one should not rely solely on a herb as means of treatment for an illness such as cancer. Even for my friend, she only took this herb at the recommendation of her friend after more than 10 years from her cancer treatment.

How to consume this herb:

You can take about a few pieces of the leaves, wash them clean and boil with water before drinking it. My friend mentioned she would add a few pieces of the leaves and boil with loh hon kou (Buddha fruit) or other drink. What she did was that she would pick a handful of the leaves and place with the loh hon kou with water- then set on a slow cooker overnight at ‘low’. She would put on at about 10pm and off the switch at about 5am the following morning.

The herb is of ‘cooling’ nature hence it may not be suited for all body types. Also you may want to boil the leaves for 2 hours or longer to reduce the cooling nature of the herb.

If you have no time to boil it for so long, you can take about 2 leaves, crushed them and place in a cup and pour hot boiling water. Cover it up.  Too much of it may cause adverse reaction such as severe diarrhea or dizziness.

For general maintenance purposes, you do not need to take this herb often. My friend generally takes it when she noticed her stool gets a little dark- and she would take 2 leaves and boil for 10 minutes and then drink the water about two to three times till the stool colour return to normal.

I am planning to try this herb myself since I have developed a darker shade of skin pigmentation located below my eyes. I would be updating the findings after giving this herb a try.