Analysis of corticosteroids by high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry

A high performance liquid chromatography electrospray mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS) method, for the detection of corticosteroids in cosmetics has been developed. A water-acetonitrile linear gradient on a C-18 reversed-phase column was found to be suitable in separating triamcinolone and its main derivatives, which greatly differ in lipophilicity. Detection was performed in negative electrospray ionisation mode. Good correlation between peaks areas and solutions concentration was found in the range 0.05-10.0 mug ml(-1) and the detection limits resulted in the range of 20-45 pg injected. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of real samples of shampoo.