Micellar enhanced chromatographic separation of selected hazardous chemical present in hair dye and their detection in formulations and swab, including assessment of damage caused to cuticle of hair shaft

•A green chromatograpic method was developed.•Developed method is suitable for routine analysis of HQ, RS, m-AMP and p-PPD in hair dyes.•Separation of the selected compounds was accomplished within 6 min.•SEM analysis revealed the damage of hair shaft. Hydroquinone (HQ), resorcinol (RS), m-aminophenol (m-AMP) and p-phenylenediamine (p-PPD) are aromatic compounds which are generally used in hair dyes to provide different colours to hair. In European Union the concentrations of HQ, RS, m-AMP and p-PPD is regulated in hair dyes and other cosmetic products by EU commission regulation EU/2019/831. This legislation is generally exercised because all these compounds are toxic and may cause severe allergies when used regularly. However in India no such regulations exist to monitor these toxic compounds in hair dyes therefore in this study a simple, rapid, economical and ecofriendly micellar liquid chromatographic (MLC) technique has been developed which can monitor all the selected toxic compounds simultaneously. HQ and RS are positional isomers and are difficult to be separated by HPLC whereas with the developed MLC method it was well separated and detected. The developed MLC technique has been applied to detect and quantify selected analytes in oxidative and non-oxidative hair dyes and swab samples from the scalp. The simultaneous separation of selected analytes was performed in mobile phase 0.09 M SDS, 0.01 M NaH2PO4–2% v/v 1-butanol at pH 7 running through C18 column under isocratic mode at 1 mL/min. flow rate. All the analytes were eluted within 6 min. The present method has been validated following the EURCHEM Guideline, 2014 in terms of calibration range (0.08–15 µg/mL), limit of detection (0.01–0.09 µg/mL), limit of quantification (0.08–0.35 µg/mL), accuracy (