You're in good company ... (Company)

Member Name: dippykitty

Product:	Company
Date:	11/06/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting features and real life stories, current price is £2

Disadvantages: Can be too top-heavy with fashion pages and sex features at times

Company is the only women's magazine that I still buy these days. I used to have subscriptions to both Cosmopolitan and Glamour as well, but Company is currently the only magazine that I still subscribe to. So, what is it about Company in particular that makes me carry on reading it?

***The Advantages***

I like the fact that Company has the type of features that really hit home to women of my age (early twenties). For example, they have regular features about getting home safely from nights out and recent features have centred on the rise in girl-on-girl violence during nights out and coin-operated sunbeds. These types of features can be found in the likes of Cosmopolitan and Glamour to a certain extent, but for some reason I prefer the Company offerings. To be honest, there isn't much difference in the types of features that each of these magazines run and the style in which they are written so they are pretty generic in relation to one another.

On a similar note, they usually have interesting real life stories. Rather than being sensationalist like some magazines, these tend to loosely centre on trends. For example, the June issue featured real life stories about being a 'professional' shoplifter and being prescribed prozac for PMT symptoms.

They usually have interviews with contemporary stars, mostly women but sometimes male stars as well. The June issue (which was the last one to land through my letterbox) featured Katy Perry, although her posing in a slinky leopard-print outfit on the cover was probably better suited to a men's magazine!

***The Disadvantages***

There is quite a bit of fashion in Company, which is great if that's your kind of thing. However, I can rarely afford to buy any of the clothes featured on the fashion pages and often don't like them anyway! There are some fashion pages before the main features start, and some more fashion pages towards the back of the magazine too before the beauty pages start. As someone who isn't overly interested in fashion as a whole, this is rather a lot of the magazine dedicated to just fashion.

My other main criticism is that there is usually a lot of sex-related articles. This is pretty typical of women's magazines as a whole but it is rather depressing if you happen to be single or not in that kind of relationship at the moment. Having said that, it's not as bad as Cosmopolitan in that regard. I last read Cosmopolitan a few months ago and couldn't help but notice that it was rather top-heavy on sex-related features. I don't think that this was a one-off as I used to subscribe up until the back end of last year. Sometimes, Company's sex features are quite interesting though. For example, in the last issue there was a feature about women who are not having sex at all for various reasons (for example, not believing in sex before marriage, having medical or psychological issues that are somehow related to sex etc).

***Overall Thoughts***

Despite my criticisms in the disadvantages section, I do like Company magazine and consider it to be the better of the women's monthlies at the moment. It's currently on sale for £2 each month which is pretty good value for what you get.

Summary: The best of the women's monthlies for me