Determination of lawsone in henna powders by high performance thin layer chromatography.

The lawsone content has been evaluated quantitatively in eight commercial henna powders and two collected henna leaves. The phenolic, chloroform-soluble fraction of the majority of the examined samples showed the presence of lawsone and two other pigments. Here we aimed to optimize high performance thin layer chromatography for the determination of lawsone. Upon using the optimized method the examined samples showed considerable variation in lawsone concentration ranging from 0.004 up to 0.608 wt%, indicating that some samples were almost devoid of lawsone. Some of these products were subjected to preliminary in vivo toxicity studies.