Abstract
A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous quantitative analysis of methylparaben (MP), ethylparaben (EP), propylparaben (PP), butylparaben (BP) and imidazolidinyl urea(IU) or diazolidinyl urea(DU) in cosmetics was studied by using a cyano-propyl column and 0.05M hexanesulfonic acid at 228 nm. Calibration curves were found to be linear in the 60-1000 $\mu\textrm{g}$/mL range (parabens), 100-1,250 $\mu\textrm{g}$/mL range (IU) and the 120-2000 $\mu\textrm{g}$/mL range (DU). Linear regression analysis of the data demonstrates the efficacy of the method in terms of precision and accuracy. An extraction method is developed and validated in order to apply this chromatographic method to a commercial cosmetic cream. The precision of this method, calculated as the relative standard deviation (RSD) of the recoveries (0.46-2.71%) was excellent for all compounds.