Extraction and determination of hormones in cosmetics by homogeneous ionic liquid microextraction high-performance liquid chromatography

The homogeneous ionic liquid microextraction was applied to the extraction of hormones from cosmetics and the hormones were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. 1-Hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate was used as extraction solvent. Ammonium hexafluorophosphate as used as ion-pairing agent. Several experimental parameters, including the volume of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, amount of ammonium hexafluorophosphate and sodium chloride, extraction and centrifuge time, and the pH value, were optimized. The limits of detection and quantification for the analytes ranged from 0.03 to 0.24 ng/mL and from 0.10 to 0.79 ng/mL, respectively. The precision for determining the hormones was lower than 5.2%. The proposed method was successfully developed for the determination of hormones in real cosmetic samples.