In this study, eight species of traditionally used medicinal plants namely Acokanthera schimperirn(Apocynaceae), Calpurnia aurea (Fabaceae, Leguminosae), Kalanchoe petitiana (Crassulaceae),rnLippia adoensis (Verbenaceae), Malva parviflora (Malvaceae) Olinia rochetiana (Oliniaceae),rnPhytolacca dodecandra (Phytolaccaceae) and Verbascum sinaiticum (Scrophulariaceae), werernscreened for antimicrobial activity against different strains of bacteria and fungi which are knownrnto cause various types of skin infections. Among these plants, L. adoensis and O. rochetiana,rnwhich showed better antimicrobial activity in the initial screening test, were selected for furtherrninvestigations. Fractionation and antimicrobial activity tests of the fractions, anti-inflammatoryrnactivity tests, phytochemical screening, evaluation of topical formulations, and preliminaryrnstandardization studies were carried out on the two species of plants.rnThe results of the initial antimicrobial screening test indicated the potential of these herbal drugsrnin treating bacterial and fungal infections of the skin. Almost all species of plants were found tornhave activity on at least one strain of bacteria and/or fungi. This might justify their claimed usesrnin the treatment of various skin disorders the majority of which are of infectious origin. Amongrnthe different fractions (petroleum ether, chloroform, acetone and methanol) tested forrnantimicrobial activity, the non-polar fractions were found to be more active than the polarrnfractions. The phytochemical screening tests carried out on L. adoensis and O. rochetianarnindicated the presence of tannins, flavonoids and saponins in both species of plants. The antiinflammatoryrnactivity test results however have indicated that the two species of plants do notrnhave demonstrable anti-inflammatory activity.rnxiirnPerformance evaluation of topical formulations of the crude extracts in different vehiclesrnrevealed that extracts incorporated into creams (especially the hydrophilic ones) are superior inrnperformance than those incorporated in to ointments. In addition, crude extracts formulated intornwater soluble ointment (PEG ointment) demonstrated higher performance compared to lipophilicrnointments. The most lipophilic formulation of the crude extracts, petrolatum ointment, was foundrnto be devoid of any activity against all the tested strains of bacteria and fungi indicating that thernactive compound(s) could not be released from this vehicle. Although evaluation of the quality ofrnthe two herbal drugs was not possible due to absence of published data for comparison, the mostrncommonly employed standardization/quality control parameters including ash values, solventrnextractable matters, loss on drying and TLC fingerprints were determined for the two herbalrndrugs in an attempt to provide such base line data as an indication of their quality attributes.