Simultaneous analysis of dehydroacetic acid, benzoic acid, sorbic acid and salicylic acid in cosmetic products by solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for simultaneous determination of dehydroacetic acid (DHA), benzoic acid (BA), sorbic acid (SOA) and salicylic acid (SA) was developed for application to cosmetic products. Isocratic reversed-phase HPLC was employed for quantitative analysis using tetra-n-butylammonium (TBA) hydroxide as an ion-pair reagent. Cosmetic samples were purified by solid-phase extraction using Bond-Elut SI cartridges. Four acidic preservatives were eluted with methanol from cartridges. The HPLC assay was carried out using TSK gel ODS-80TM column (5 microm, 150 x 4.6 mm I.D.). The mobile phase consisted of a mixture of water and methanol (65:35, v/v) containing 2.5 mM TBA hydroxide adjusted with phosphoric acid to pH 7.0. The calibration curves of these preservatives showed good linearity with UV detection (235 nm). The correlation coefficients were better than 0.999 in all cases. The lower limits of detection (defined as a signal-to-noise ratio of about 3) were approximately 2.5 ng for DHA, 4.0 ng for BA, 2.0 ng for SOA and 5.5 ng for SA. The procedure described here is simple, selective and is suitable for quality control of finished cosmetic products.