A cosmetic having excellent properties in transparency, spreadability, smoothness, skin compatibility and safety is prepared using a synthetic talc that is flake-like particles containing 2:1-type laminar crystals of silicate which have a basic structure of an octahedron sheet sandwiched between two tetrahedron sheets. The flake-like particle has a mean volume particle diameter of 0.5 to 100 μm, and 0.3° or less of half width at half maximum of peak present at 2θ equal to 9.4°±1° when measured by unoriented powder X-ray diffractometry (XRD) using CuKα rays, and the cosmetic is substantially free of Mg3Si2O5(OH)4.
