DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A NEW RP HPLC METHOD FOR ROUTINE DETERMINATION OF TEA TREE OIL IN BULK AND COSMECEUTICAL FORMULATIONS

Tea tree oil, an active ingredient of skin, hair and nail care cosmeceuticals, has claims for topical antimicrobial, analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity. Its complex composition is governed by ISO 4730:2017. Terpinene-4-ol is the principal constituent of the oil (35% - 48%) followed by γ-terpinene (14% -28%), α-terpinene (6%-12%) and 1,8-cineole (≤15%). A reversed-phase, isocratic high performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed and validated for routine determination of tea tree oil based on1,8-cineole content in bulk and commercially available cosmeceuticals using C18 column, methanol-water (70:30 v/v) as mobile phase and flow rate of 1mL/min. UV detection was done at 200 nm. Linearity of the method was established for 20-100μL/mL (R2 = 0.9992) with LOD, LOQ values of 0.5594 μL/mL and 5.5941μL/mL respectively. The % RSD values for robustness and precision were <1% and recovery ranged between 99.09-102.96%. The method was successfully applied for determination of 1,8-cineole content in cosmeceuticals.