[Generic method for determination of volatile organic solvents in cosmetics]

A generic screening, confirmation and determination method was established based on 36 commonly used volatile organic solvents in cosmetics by headspace gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC-MS). This method included a database for pilot screening and identifi- cation of those solvents and their quantitative method. Pilot screening database was composed by two sections, one was household section built by two columns with opposite polarities (col- umn VF-1301 ms and DB-5 ms) using retention index in different column systems as qualitative parameter, and the other was NIST MS search version 2.0. Meanwhile, the determination method of the 36 volatile solvents was developed with GC-MS. Cosmetic samples were dissolved in water and transferred to a headspace vial. After 30 min equilibration at 60 °C, the samples were analyzed by GC-MS equipped with a capillary chromatographic column VF-1301 ms. The external calibration was used for quantification. The limits of detection were from 0.01 to 3.3 μg/g, and the recoveries were from 60.77% to 126.6%. This study provided a generic method for pilot screening, identification, and quantitation of volatile organic solvents in cosmetics, and may solve the problem that different analytical methods need to be developed for different targeted compounds and pilot screening for potential candidate solvent residues.