United States · Talcum powder · Product analysis
The only talc-based powder in this batch, and the cheapest per ounce by a wide margin: 14 ingredients, eight named allergens, and a price that has just reached its historical ceiling.
Captured 2026-10-29 · all prices in US dollars as published, no currency conversion applied
01
Product information
Maja is a Spanish perfume house whose talcum powder has been sold in the same black-and-gold floral bottle for decades, and this listing sells it as a two-pack of 200 g bottles. The scent is the product: an oriental accord of spices, florals, incense and woods that the brand dates to more than a hundred years of continuous use, and that the copy wraps in fairly unrestrained positioning — Maja means ‘beautiful woman’ in Spanish, and the listing says so twice.
Unlike most of the modern shelf, this one is talc-based and says so on the pack. The declared formula is fourteen ingredients: talc, the fragrance, two preservatives, a humectant diol, hydrated silica and an antimicrobial. There is no talc-free claim anywhere on the listing, no dermatologist endorsement, and no attempt to reposition the product for facial use beyond a single bullet about absorbing facial oils.
Positioning. A heritage fragrance powder sold on scent, price per ounce and nostalgia. The formula is minimal and openly talc-based; the competitive story is the perfume, not the chemistry.
Gallery
Source: Amazon
Source: Amazon
Source: Amazon
Listing facts
| Brand | Maja |
| Manufacturer | Factor Int’l. / Grisi Hnos. |
| UPC | 037836262227 |
| Category path | Beauty & Personal Care › Fragrance › Dusting Powders |
| Best Sellers Rank | #21,677 in Beauty & Personal Care; #7 in Fragrance Dusting Powders |
| Item form | Loose powder in a shaker bottle |
| Net content | 14 oz / 400 g total (2 × 7 oz) |
| Scent family | Oriental: spices, florals, incense, woods |
| Sold by | Amazon.com |
| Availability | In stock at capture |
Rank at capture was #7 in Fragrance Dusting Powders, the highest position of the three products in this batch on that shelf.
02
Rating and customer voice
Aggregate rating 4.7 out of 5 from 2,522 ratings. 84% five-star and 92% four-star-or-better on 2,522 ratings, with the remaining 8% spread almost evenly across three, two and one star. That is the profile of a product buyers like but which occasionally goes wrong for them, rather than one that fails broadly. The review summary identifies the fault line precisely: skin irritation is the only aspect here with a negative majority, at 33% positive across 24 mentions.
Star distribution
| 5 star | 84% | |
| 4 star | 8% | |
| 3 star | 4% | |
| 2 star | 2% | |
| 1 star | 2% |
What buyers talk about
Aspect volume and positive share, as reported by the listing's own review summary. Mentions are counts, not shares of all reviews.
| Aspect | Mentions | Positive | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fragrance | 270 | 79% | The largest theme and the most contested: liked as feminine, not overpowering. |
| Effectiveness | 157 | 89% | Keeps skin dry and fresh; the strongest positive signal in the listing. |
| Softness | 73 | 86% | Skin feels smooth after application. |
| Value for money | 55 | 87% | The two-pack price is read as good value per bottle. |
| Dryness | 50 | 94% | The clearest win in the listing: it does keep skin dry. |
| Skin irritation | 24 | 33% | The fault line. Some buyers cannot tolerate it. |
| Scent strength | 22 | 64% | Split: a substantial minority find it too strong. |
| Appearance | 21 | 100% | The bottle itself is uniformly liked. |
The listing summary reports that customers love the silky texture and all-day freshness, describe the scent as feminine and not overbearing, and rate fragrance, effectiveness, value and appearance positively; it records that opinions on skin irritation are mixed, with some buyers finding it comfortable and others unable to tolerate it.
03
Ingredients and formula
Fourteen ingredients, and the carrier is talc. The complete declaration is reproduced below in label order, which is concentration order. No ingredient has been omitted, and no risk rating that was not obtained is shown.
Formula at a glance
Structural base · 1
Talc
Functional auxiliary · 2
Decylene GlycolHydrated Silica
Preservation · 2
PhenoxyethanolChlorhexidine Digluconate
Fragrance and allergens · 9
Parfum (Fragrance)Alpha-Isomethyl IononeBenzyl SalicylateCitralCitronellolCoumarinEugenolGeraniolLimonene
Complete ingredient declaration
| # | INCI name | Function | Level | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Talc | Absorbent, bulking agent, slip | Structural base | The carrier; the product is talc-based |
| 2 | Parfum (Fragrance) | Perfuming | Fragrance and allergens | Eight allergens declared in parentheses on the pack |
| 3 | Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 4 | Benzyl Salicylate | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 5 | Citral | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 6 | Citronellol | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 7 | Coumarin | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 8 | Eugenol | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 9 | Geraniol | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 10 | Limonene | Fragrance allergen | Fragrance and allergens | EU declarable |
| 11 | Phenoxyethanol | Preservative | Preservation | — |
| 12 | Decylene Glycol | Skin conditioning, preservative booster | Functional auxiliary | — |
| 13 | Hydrated Silica | Absorbent, anti-caking, flow agent | Functional auxiliary | — |
| 14 | Chlorhexidine Digluconate | Antimicrobial | Preservation | — |
Formula analysis
The simplest structure in the batch, and the only one built on talc. Talc does the work that starch and mica do in the other two products: it absorbs moisture, gives the powder slip against skin, and provides the softness buyers describe. Hydrated silica keeps it flowing, and the remaining non-fragrance ingredients form a two-part preservation system.
That preservation system is the most substantive difference between this formula and a bare talc powder. Phenoxyethanol is the primary preservative, decylene glycol is a diol that both conditions skin and boosts preservation, and chlorhexidine digluconate is an antimicrobial with a long history in personal care. Three agents for a dry powder is more than the other two products carry, which suggests the manufacturer is protecting a product that can be used on damp skin after bathing.
The fragrance declaration deserves credit: every allergen is named inside the brackets rather than collapsed into a single entry. Eight allergens is a mid-point in this batch by count, but the disclosure quality is the best of the three, because a buyer can actually see what is in the scent.
Fragrance allergens
8 of 14 declared ingredients are fragrance allergens named on the label. Eight fragrance allergens are named individually on the pack. That is a mid-point by count but the highest by disclosure quality, because the declaration itemises the contents of the parfum instead of collapsing them.
The same formula against the rest of this batch
Declared ingredients by function level, stacked. The three products were collected on the same day from the same shelf, so the comparison is like for like.
04
Price and price history
At capture the product was $14.91, sold by Amazon.com, with no list price and no Subscribe & Save offer displayed. The unit price is $1.07 per ounce, the cheapest per-ounce powder in this batch by a wide margin.
Price at capture
| Price shown | $14.91 |
| List price | $12.36 |
| Unit price | $1.07 per ounce |
| Currency | USD |
All-time price record
Five published values per price type. These are lifetime figures: the archive’s summary block does not change with the chart window, so nothing here describes a shorter period.
| Price type | Lowest ever | Highest ever | Last observed | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | $8.49 (2021-07-12) | $15.34 (2026-10-20) | $14.91 (2026-10-26) | $11.69 |
| 3rd Party New | $13.46 (2026-09-27) | $30.07 (2026-07-24) | $14.91 (2026-10-27) | $24.01 |
| 3rd Party Used | — | — | — | — |
Price comparison across the record
Where the current price sits
| Benchmark | Amazon | 3rd Party New |
|---|---|---|
| All-time range (high − low) | $6.85 | $16.61 |
| Range as % of the low | 80.7% | 123.4% |
| Current vs all-time low | +75.6% | +10.8% |
| Current vs all-time high | -2.8% | -50.4% |
| Current vs lifetime average | +27.5% | -37.9% |
| Lifetime average vs list price | -5.4% | +94.3% |
| Price at capture vs list price | +20.6% ($14.91 against $12.36) | |
Reading the record
The two channels tell opposite stories and the gap between them is the finding. Amazon’s series averages $11.69 over five years but has climbed to $14.91 — its second-highest observation ever, four days after a $15.34 all-time high. The marketplace averaged $24.01, spiked to $30.07 in July 2026, then collapsed to parity with Amazon in late September.
The dates are what make this record useful. A third-party low of $13.46 dated September 2026 means the secondary market only became competitive five years into the record. Read together: Amazon has been raising the effective price of this two-pack through 2026 while third-party supply, which had been priced at roughly a 105% premium to Amazon’s average, finally normalised. The product is trading at its historical ceiling on the primary channel at the same moment the secondary channel came down to meet it.
Movement against benchmarks
05
Method, confidence and limits
How this was assembled
Prices were read against a US delivery address (New York 10001), so the currency is native USD. The product record, rating distribution, review-summary aspects and the ingredient declaration were read from the live listing at capture. Price history was read from an independent Amazon price-tracking archive that publishes all-time lows, highs, last-observed values and lifetime averages per price type. The two are reported side by side rather than merged, because they measure different things: the listing is a live buy box, the archive is a long-run record.
What was not available
| Element | Status | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Individual review text | Not rendered at capture | No review is quoted. Themes come from the listing’s own summary and aspect counts. |
| Buyer-uploaded photos | None exposed by this listing | Only the three listing images are shown; no substitute was used. |
| Ingredient risk ratings | Not obtained | No comedogenic or irritancy score is claimed for any ingredient. |
| Third-party claim verification | Not available | Claims are reported as the listing makes them, not as verified facts. |
Confidence
| Element | Confidence | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Listing facts, specifications, rank | High | Read directly from the live product page |
| Rating and star distribution | High | Published aggregate and histogram |
| Ingredient identity and order | High | Manufacturer declaration, transcribed in full |
| Aspect volumes and sentiment | Medium | Aggregated by the listing, not independently coded |
| All-time price values | High | Transcribed verbatim from the archive |
| Shape of the price series between extremes | Low | The archive publishes no observation-level history |
Limits worth stating
- Everything here is a single-day snapshot. Rank, price and review counts move between captures.
- Price averages cover the entire monitored life of the product, including launch pricing, and are therefore biased toward early periods.
- Last-observed prices are already days old at capture and are not live quotes.
- Star buckets are rounded shares, so a 0% cell is not proof that no such rating exists.
- Ingredient function is standard cosmetic chemistry, not a field published for this product; the four-level grouping is an analyst scheme, not a risk score.