SUMMARY
Cosmetics are preparations that are applied to the external surface of the body for the purpose of cleaning, perfuming, changing the appearance or keeping the body in good condition. Currently, people are very interested in using facial whitening cream cosmetics that are sold online and often found the content in whitening creams is Hydroquinone. The use of hydroquinone in whitening creams has been limited due to adverse side effects. This study aims to determine the levels of hydroquinone in whitening creams circulating online.The method used was qualitative analysis on 3 samples of whitening cream which were suspected to contain hydroquinone, the positive results of the qualitative test were followed by analysis using Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) with methanol:chloroform (50:50) and n-Hexane:acetone (3:2) as mobile phase, and UV-Vis spectrophotometric analysis. The results of this study are TLC testing on samples obtained Rf values ??of 0.8 and 0.4, respectively. Determination of the maximum wavelength at 294nm resulted in the average level of hydroquinone content from sample 1 of 2,020µg/ml, the second sample of 16,244µg/ml, while in the third sample of 9,387µg/ml. In conclusion, the levels of hydroquinone in each cream sample were 2,020µg/ml, 16,244µg/ml, 9,387µg/ml where these levels were not in accordance with the 2008 BPOM RI regulations. Keywords: hydroquinone, whitening cream, thin layer chromatography, UV-Vis spectrophotometry