Determination of hydroquinone in skin whitening products by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) equipped with diode array detector (DAD) / Fatin Marzuki

Skin whitening products are being used widely, especially by women. However, not many people are aware that some of the ingredients used in skin whitening products were dangerous such as hydroquinone. Hydroquinone can cause skin irritation, redness and itching. A reverse phase - high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was proposed here to detect the presence and determine the amount of hydroquinone in three different brands of skin whitening products which were labeled as X, Y and Z. A composition of methanol and water (65:55) with a flow rate 1.5 mL/min was used in this study. The results showed that hydroquinone was not detected in the samples X and Y under the condition used in this study. However, sample Z contained 0.14 ppm or 0.00698% of hydroquinone. The percent relative standard deviation (% RSD) of the sample Z was 14.86%. The detected amount of hydroquinone in sample Z was below the allowable limit, 20 ppm.