Simultaneous detection of hazardous skin whitening agents in Indian cosmetic products using a green chromatographic technique

The present work mainly highlights the simultaneous detection of four skin whitening agents i.e. hydroquinone (HQ), resorcinol (RS), catechol (CC) and 3,3′-dichlorobenzidine (DCB) in facial creams body lotion. Among these, first three are positional isomers dihydroxybenzene so separation is difficult with conventional reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic technique (RP-HPLC). selected were detected cream lotion using micellar chromatography coupled to a photodiode array detector (MLC-PDA). In study, optimization method was accomplished response surface methodology (RSM) central composite design (CCD). second-order polynomial model for predicting optimal run time evaluated by analysis variance (ANOVA) 3D plots interactions between variables constructed. Three experimental parameters which chosen as independent were; surfactant concentration (SDS), volume percentage organic modifier (OM) pH mobile phase. optimized phase 0.15 M SDS 7% 1-butanol, buffered at 7 0.01 NaH2PO4. determination analytes 7.5 min. correlation coefficient (r2) values satisfactory 0.998–0.999 over linear range. Limits (LODs) limits quantification (LOQs) range 0.05–0.07 μg/mg 0.11–0.14 μg/mg, respectively. Trueness (98.4–102.7%) precision (< 4.3%) acceptable. developed fast, cost-effective, green could easily analyze complex matrices (facial creams, lotion) without any pretreatment other than filtration. results indicated that MLC-PDA proved be more suitable isomers.