An anal. method for the determination of retinol and its six derivatives (retinal, retinyl acetate, retinyl propionate, retinyl palmitate, hydroxypinacolone retinoate and retinyl retinoate) in raw materials and cosmetics has been developed.The sample was extracted with acetonitrile, followed by high performance liquid chromatog. (HPLC) determination with diode array detector (DAD), then it was separated by ZORBAX Eclipse Plus C-18 (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) using acetonitrile and THF as the mobile phase with gradient elution.The column temperature was 30°C, and the flow rate was 1 mL/min.The diode array detector was used to detect seven kinds of retinols and their derivatives in raw materials and cosmetics at multi-wavelength.The method is successfully validated which shows a good linearity (0.9997-1) with the limits of detection in the range of 0.5-2 μg/mL and quantification ranged from 1.5 to 6 μg/mL, resp.Finally, the proposed anal. method is applied to the determination of retinol and its six derivatives in different dosage forms of cosmetic samples containing essence, emulsion and cream, with good relative recovery values (92.37%-112.06%), and the precision (RSD) ranged from 0.20% to 6.14%.Thus, the results show that matrix effects are negligible.The method shows a good practicability and reproducibility through detection of 14 batches of samples.The good anal. features of the proposed method besides its simplicity and affordability, make it useful to carry out the quality control of cosmetic products.The establishment of this method is helpful for cosmetic enterprises to search for high-quality raw materials, control the best balance between efficacy and measurement, verify whether the production process is reliable and ensure the stability of raw materials and product efficacy.At the same time, it provides reliable quality inspection means for enterprises when developing and producing products.This method not only meets the simultaneous determination of multiple components in batch samples, but also improves the detection efficiency and reduces the exptl. cost.The establishment of this test method is of great significance for the market supervision of cosmetics and cosmetic raw materials.