Castiñeira Landeira, AnaVázquez Ferreiro, LúaDagnac, ThierryCeleiro Montero, MaríaLlompart Vizoso, María del Pilar2026-04-102026-04-102023-10-07Castiñeira-Landeira, A., Vazquez, L., Dagnac, T., Celeiro, M., & Llompart, M. (2023). Allergens and Other Harmful Substances in Hydroalcoholic Gels: Compliance with Current Regulation. Methods and protocols, 6(5), 95. https://doi.org/10.3390/mps6050095https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46650Hydroalcoholic gels or hand sanitisers have become essential products to prevent and mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. Depending on their use, they can be classified as cosmetics (cleaning the skin) or biocides (with antimicrobial effects). The aim of this work was to determine sixty personal care products frequently found in cosmetic formulations, including fragrance allergens, synthetic musks, preservatives and plasticisers, in hydroalcoholic gels and evaluate their compliance with the current regulation. A simple and fast analytical methodology based on solid-phase microextraction followed by gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS/MS) was validated and applied to 67 real samples. Among the 60 target compounds, 47 of them were found in the analysed hand sanitisers, highlighting the high number of fragrance allergens (up to 23) at concentrations of up to 32,458  g g􀀀1. Most of the samples did not comply with the labelling requirements of the EU Regulation No 1223/2009, and some of them even contained compounds banned in cosmetic products such as plasticisers. Method sustainability was also evaluated using the metric tool AGREEPrep, demonstrating its greenness.eng© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Hydroalcoholic gelsPersonal care productsSolid phase microextractionGas chromatographyTandem mass spectrometryInvestigaciónjournal article10.3390/mps60500952409-9279open access