Simultaneous determination of four anti-dandruff agents including octopirox in shampoo products by reversed-phase liquid chromatography.

A method based on reversed-phase liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been developed for the simultaneous identification and quantitative determination of four anti-dandruff agents such as salicylic acid, ketoconazole, climbazole, octopirox in commercial anti-dandruff shampoo products. A symmetry C18 column (5 microm, 250 mm x 4.6 mm i.d.) was used at temperature of 35 degrees C, mobile phase with flow rate of 0.8 mL min(-1) was acetonitrile: water (containing 10 mm potassium dihydrogen phosphate, pH 4.0, adjusted with orthophosphoric acid) = 60 : 40 (V/V) and UV detection at 224 nm and 305 nm. Samples were extracted with mobile phase by stirring and ultrasonic method. The average recoveries of four anti-dandruff agents were 98.0-104.1%. The relative standard deviations for samples were 0.11-0.90%. The method is simple, rapid and reproducible.