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Determination of preservatives in cosmetic products. II. High-performance liquid chromatographic identification
N De Kruijf1, A Schouten, M A Rijk
1TNO-CIVO Food Analysis Institute, Department of Toxicological Analysis, AJ Zeist, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) procedure is presented for the separation and identification of preservatives that are listed in the current EEC Council Directive on cosmetic products or have been permitted in the past. The method consists of an extraction of acidified cosmetics with methanol, and separation of the extracts by HPLC. Using two isocratic and two gradient reversed-phase HPLC systems, 47 preservatives were characterized by their retention times. The preservatives in three commercial cosmetic products were tentatively identified by the procedure described. The HPLC procedure is suitable for confirmation of the presence of preservatives in cosmetic products as indicated by a previously reported thin-layer chromatographic procedure. In general this method will permit the routine detection of preservatives in cosmetics in an approximate concentration of 0.01% (w/w).