Determination of alpha-hydroxy acids in cosmetic products by high-performance liquid chromatography with a narrow-bore column

This paper reports the results of a study carried out to develop a simple, rapid and sensitive method for the separation, identification and quantitative measurement of α-hydroxy acids in commercial cosmetics using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This method is successfully applied to the simultaneous identification and quantitative determination of glycolic, lactic, malic, tartaric and citric acids employing a reversed phase narrow-bore column under isocratic condition and UV detection. The method is validated by determining the precision of replicate analyses and accuracy by analyzing samples with and without adding know amount of the alpha-hydroxy acids. The procedure is suitable for routine analyses of commercial cosmetics.