한경문 (식품의약품안전평가원)

박채경 (식품의약품안전평가원)

김현경 (식품의약품안전평가원)

한경문 (식품의약품안전평가원)

박채경 (식품의약품안전평가원)

김형수 (식품의약품안전평가원)

김현경 (식품의약품안전평가원)

As the use of skin-whitening cosmetics increases, the illegal use of banned ingredients has been frequently reported. In particular, hydroquinone and betamethasone valerate are used for their whitening effects but are banned due to serious side effects such as allergic contact dermatitis and skin atrophy. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an analytical method for detecting these banned ingredients in cosmetics. To establish the method, sample preparation was optimized using an eco-friendly approach based on natural deep eutectic solvents (NaDES). Choline chloride (ChCl) and betaine were used as hydrogen bond acceptors (HBAs), and 1,3-propanediol was used as the hydrogen bond donor (HBD). When various HBA–HBD mixtures at different molar ratios were evaluated, a NaDES composed of ChCl and 1,3-propanediol in a molar ratio of 1:4 showed high recovery ranging from 83.96% to 105.45%. The optimized pretreatment was applied to establish a method for the simultaneous analysis of ten banned skin-whitening agents using HPLC-DAD. The chromatographic conditions were as follows: separation was performed on a monolithic C18 column (130 Å, 4.6 × 100 mm) and the gradient LC method was applied at 25 °C with a flow rate of 1.2 mL/min, using mobile phase A (0.007% trifluoroacetic acid in water) and mobile phase B (acetonitrile/methanol, 97:3, v/v). The developed method demonstrates the feasibility of using green solvents in cosmetic analysis and proposes a sustainable and effective method for detecting illegal skin-whitening agents.

Acknowledgement: This research was supported by a grant (25211MFDS002) from Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2025.