Summary Nowadays, cosmetic as well as pharmaceutical forms must undergo many controls, i.e. in-process controls on the finished product and stability testing. The authors suggest using first derivative spectroscopy for active ingredients assay presenting an ultra-violet absorption. It offers the advantage of a direct assay through simple dilution and without active ingredient extraction. Tests were made on classic mixtures of the sunscreens benzimidazol and cinnamate derivative (pair 1), and a mixture of two benzophenones (pair 2). The studied forms were solutions in propylene glycol and commercialized W/O and O/W creams. After analytical method validation for each sunscreen by precision, reproducibility and repeatability studies, the percentages of error of the various assays have been reported in various preparations (solutions or creams). A comparative study between HPLC assay (traditionally used) and the proposed method was carried out. The results show that a highly significant linear correlation exists between the two methods for the four sunscreens (R > 0.992). The speed and simplicity of the first derivative spectrometric method should find applications in routine control or in development of cosmetic or pharmaceutical preparations.