Abstract: The cosmetic sample (1.000 g) was taken and placed in a 10 mL-stoppered colorimetric tube, and the mixture was made its volume up to 10 mL with the mixed solution of acetonitrile and tetrahydrofuran at a volume ratio of 4∶1. The mixture was vortexed for 30 s, extracted by ultrasound for 15 min and colded down. The mixed solution was passed through a 0.45 μm filter membrane, and retinol and its derivatives, including retinoic acid, isoretinoic acid, retinal, retinol acetate, hydroxypinacolone retinoate, retinol propionate, retinol retinoate, and retinol palmitate in the filtrate were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. ZORBAX Eclispse Plus C₁₈ chromatographic column was used as the stationary phase and the mixed solution composed of acetonitrile, tetrahydrofuran and 5 mmol·L⁻¹ ammonium acetate solution at different volume ratios was used as the mobile phase for gradient elution. As shown by the results, linear relationships between the corresponding peak areas and mass concentrations of 9 target compounds were kept in the range of 0.5-50 mg·L⁻¹, with detection limits (3S/N) of 0.5 mg·kg⁻¹. Test for recovery was made by the standard addition method, giving results in the range of 85.3%-116%, with RSDs (n=6) of the determined values less than 10%. The method was applied to analysis of 72 batches of cosmetics labeled with retinol and its derivatives. The detection results of 39 batches of samples were inconsistent with the labels, and prohibited retinoic acid and isoretinoic acid were detected in 6 batches of samples.