Abstract: A method for simultaneous determination of lead,mercury,arsenic and cadmium in cosmetics by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was established.Indium was used as internal standard element.Samples were digested in a closed microwave oven.Contents of lead,mercury,arsenic and cadmium were simultaneously analyzed by ICP-MS,and the results were compared with that obtained from the national official method.The calibration curves for four elements showed good linearity with all correlative coefficients of 0.999 7;the limits of detection (LOD) were 0.006~0.1 μg·L^-1;the relative standard deviations of repeatability experiments of samples (n=6) were between 0.65% and 4.82%;the spiked recoveries were between 94.1% and 108.6%.Methodological study showed that the results obtained from this method were basically consistent with that from the national official method.

Key words: cosmetics, heavy metal, microwave digestion, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry