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China Surfactant Detergent & Cosmetics ›› 2025, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (12): 1616-1628.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.2097-2806.2025.12.015

• Analytical methods and testing • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Simultaneous determination of 48 allergic substances in cosmetics by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Huiduan Long1,Yixiang Lu1,Erdan Hu2,Keming Zhang1,*()   

  1. 1 Guangxi Institute for Drug Control, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China
    2 Department of Medicine, Yulin Campus of Guangxi Medical University, Yulin, Guangxi 537406, China
  • Received:2025-02-20 Revised:2025-12-19 Online:2025-12-22 Published:2026-01-23
  • Contact: *E-mail: 150851877@qq.com. E-mail:150851877@qq.com

Abstract:

A gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (GC-MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 48 allergic substances in cosmetics. Cosmetic samples with different matrices, such as water matrix, cream matrix, lipstick matrix, and powder matrix, were directly extracted with ethyl acetate by ultrasonication, then separated on a CD-WAX capillary column (30 m×0.25 mm×0.5 μm), and detected by GC-MS/MS in multiple reactive ion monitoring (MRM) mode. The water matrix was quantified by external standard method, the cream matrix, lipstick matrix, powder matrix, and other solid matrices were quantified by the matrix-matched external standard method. The results show that the 48 allergic substances have good linear relationships, with the correlation coefficients (r) exceeding 0.99. The limits of detection (LODs) and the limits of quantification (LOQs) are 0.002-0.3 mg/kg and 0.004-0.7 mg/kg, respectively. Under the three spiked levels of low, medium and high, the average recoveries range from 82.6% to 118.6%, and the relative standard deviations are between 1.0% and 9.8%. The method is applied to test 30 batches of cosmetics sold on the market, and the detected components cover 19 allergic substances. The method is simple, sensitive, accurate, effective, and suitable for the detection of 48 allergic ingredients in cosmetics, providing technical support for the supervision of cosmetics and data support for the establishment and revision of quality standards for allergic ingredients.

Key words: cosmetics, allergic substances, fragrances, synthetic musks, parabens, gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

CLC Number: 

  • TQ658