A new water-soluble reagent, rhodamine B piperazinoacetohydrazine (RBPH), with improved spectroscopic and reaction properties, has been developed and characterized for pyruvic acid labeling. The reagent RBPH is designed and synthesized by using rhodamine B as a spectroscopic unit, and hydrazine as a carbonyl-specific labeling unit; the two units are connected by a well-chosen linker of piperazine, which prohibits the formation of the nonfluorescent spirocyclic structure of rhodamine B, thereby keeping the spectroscopic response of the reagent in a stable state. Such a design enables RBPH not only to maintain its excellent spectroscopic properties over a wide pH range, but also to exist as a stable cation with high water solubility. Moreover, the hydrazino group of RBPH is expected to react selectively with carbonyl compounds under mild conditions through the rapid formation of hydrazones. These important features make RBPH of great potential use in the labeling of aldehydes or ketones in various biosystems, and such an application of RBPH as a precolumn derivatizing reagent has been successfully demonstrated on the analysis of pyruvic acid in human serum by high-performance liquid chromatography with common UV/Vis detection.