Aim and scope:
Due to the serious toxicological risks and their widespread use,
quantitative determination of phthalates in cosmetic products have importance for public health.
The aim of this study was to develop a validated simple, rapid and reliable high-performance liquid
chromatography (HPLC) method for the determination of phthalates which are; dimethyl phthalate
(DMP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), di(2-
ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), in cosmetic products and to investigate these phthalate (PHT) levels
in 48 cosmetic products marketing in Sivas, Turkey.
Materials and Methods:
Separation was achieved by a reverse-phase ACE-5 C18 column (4.6 x
250 mm, 5.0 μm). As the mobile phase, 5 mM KH2PO4 and acetonitrile were used gradiently at 1.5
ml min-1. All PHT esters were detected at 230 nm and the run time was taking 21 minutes.
Results:
This method showed the high sensitivity value the limit of quantification (LOQ) values
for which are below 0.64 μg mL-1 of all phthalates. Method linearity was ≥0.999 (r2). Accuracy and
precision values of all phthalates were calculated between (-6.5) and 6.6 (RE%) and ≤6.2 (RSD%),
respectively. Average recovery was between 94.8% and 99.6%. Forty-eight samples used for both
babies and adults were successfully analyzed by the developed method. Results have shown that,
DMP (340.7 μg mL-1 ±323.7), DEP (1852.1 μg mL-1 ± 2192.0), and DBP (691.3 μg mL-1 ± 1378.5)
were used highly in nail polish, fragrance and cream products, respectively.
Conclusion:
Phthalate esters, which are mostly detected in the content of fragrance, cream and nail
polish products and our research in general, are DEP (1852.1 μg mL-1 ± 2192.0), DBP (691.3 μg
mL-1 ± 1378.5) and DMP (340.7 μg mL-1 ±323.7), respectively. Phthalates were found in the
content of all 48 cosmetic products examined, and the most detected phthalates in general average
were DEP (581.7 μg mL-1 + 1405.2) with a rate of 79.2%. The unexpectedly high phthalate content
in the examined cosmetic products revealed a great risk of these products on human health. The
developed method is a simple, sensitive, reliable and economical alternative for the determination
of phthalates in the content of cosmetic products, it can be used to identify phthalate esters in
different products after some modifications.
