Due to short time delay

good penetration enhancing effect and low toxicity

volatile oil from Chinese medicine have attracted more and more attention of scholars both at home and abroad.In this paper

the skin penetration enhancing effect of volatile oil(used alone

used together with other penetration enhancer

the penetration enhancing effect of their constituents

penetration enhancing mechanism) and their skin penetration effect were reviewed.The problems existing in this area were pointed out

model drugs were mostly chemical drugs

the evaluation indicators were single chemical composition

the guiding role of theory of traditional Chinese medicine was weakened;studies on the penetration material basis

the penetration enhancing mechanism

the penetration enhancing law were very few;studies on the influencing factors in vitro diffusion cell method was not comprehensive.Meanwhile

the research ideas are put forward

which are suitable for Chinese medicine

on the basis of studying the traditional literature

taking classic prescriptions or commonly used drug pairs as the object of study and combination of chemical composition and biological effect as indexes

experiment should be carried out by combination of in vitro diffusion cell and in vivo method.