Determination of Apigenin in Cosmetics Containing Chamomile by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Ultraviolet Detection (HPLC-UV)

A simple, rapid, and precise high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed to determine the flavonoid apigenin in cosmetic products containing chamomile extracts. A C18 column was used as stationary phase and 70:30 ethanol:water was used as mobile phase with a 1 mL/min flow rate and isocratic elution. The temperature was stabilized at 25 °C during the separation. The injection volume was 50 μL. The apigenin peak was eluted at 4.15 ± 0.4 min. The method was validated according to International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) criteria in terms of linearity, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, selectivity, sensitivity, robustness, accuracy, and precision. The limits of detection and quantitation were 0.060 and 0.2 μg/mL respectively. The linear range was from 0.2 to 20 μg/mL. The relative standard deviation values for intraday and interday analyses were less than 1.64%. The developed procedure was applied to the analysis of various cosmetic products. It is expected that the method is suitable for routine analysis, quality control and standardization of cosmetic products for apigenin.