A environmentally friendly reversed-phase liquid chromatography method for phthalates determination in nail cosmetics

A simple and rapid analytical method was developed for the determination of phthalates, usually employed in nail cosmetic products. The method is based on an ultrasonic extraction of the sample with ethanol–water (90:10, v/v) followed by HPLC separation and quantitation. HPLC was carried out using a C18 column and spectrophotometric detection at 254 nm. A linear gradient elution was performed with ethanol–water starting from 50 to 95% ethanol in 30 min. Standard calibration curves were linear for all the analytes over the concentration range 5–200 μg ml−1 with LOD values of about 0.5 μg ml−1.The proposed green analytical method has been successfully applied for the analysis of commercial samples in order to check the presence of phthalates and to determine their concentration.