A simple and effective procedure is proposed for colorimetric detection of hydrazine and phenylhydrazine. It was found that the reduction of AuCl4- to gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) by these compunds in the presence of Tween-20 as a stabilizing agent produced very intense surface plasmon resonance peak of Au-NPs. The plasmon absorbance of the Au-NPs allows the quantitative spectrophotometric detection of the hydrazine and phenylhydrazine. The calibration curves derived from the changes in absorbance at λ = 530 and λ = 550 nm for hydrazine and phenylhydrazine, respectively were linear with concentration of hydrazine and phenylhydrazine in the range of 1.0×10-6- 2.0×10-4 M, 5×10-6 - 4×10-4 M,...