Abstract:

An analytical method based on ultra performance liquid chromatography has been developed for the simultaneous determination of 15 hormones (triamcinolone, hydrocortisone, prednisone, cortisone, 6α-methylprednisolone, betamethasone, dexamethasone, prednisolone acetate, hydrocortisone acetate, estriol, β-estradiol, estrone, diethylstilbestrol, testosterone and progesterone) in cosmetics. Various cosmetic samples were extracted with methanol under ultrasonication, and then cleaned up by a Oasis HLB solid phase extraction cartridge. The 15 hormones were separated and detected within 6 min on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC BEH C18 column (1.7 μm, 2.1 mm×50 mm) by gradient elution with acetonitrile and water system. In the range of 1-25 ng, the calibration curves of 15 hormones showed good linearity with the correlation coefficients larger than 0.9995. The mean recoveries at the three spiked levels （2, 10, 20 mg/kg） were 88.2%-102.4%with the relative standard deviations of 1.6%-7.4%.

Key words: cosmetics , hormones, solid phase extraction (SPE), ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)