Fashion with a heart..and a head: Cosmo for the intelligent. (Marie Claire)

Member Name: LRWade

Product:	Marie Claire
Date:	05/07/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good gifts, recycled pages, fun to read.

Disadvantages: Nothing major.

It used to be that I would rather gouge out my own eyes with a rusty spoon than read a woman's magazine. "How terribly un-feminist to read a magazine telling me how to be a gorgeous woman". And the contraditions. On one hand they tell how to be the perfect mother, on the other they tell how to be a new woman with a high flying career. All of which I have to do with the waist of a 5 year old. So...bring on the rusty spoons.

That is until Marie Claire had an eco makeover. I'm a bit of a domestic eco nut, I like to use ecover, turn off my heating as much as possible and I'd never use a tumble dryer. Then I saw an issue of Marie Claire with a paper covering and a free mini body shop coconut body butter. I was intrigued and coerced by the "free gift". So I bought it, and had to read it to make my moneys worth. I was nicely surprised.

The articles were compassionate and intelligent, the fashion not too catwalk (though certainly not suitable for my curvy body), there was enough eco/fair trade fashion to warrant their claims of caring consumerism. The recycled pages were sturdy-which gives the obvious question, why don't all magazines use recycled paper? I read it from cover to cover, no mean feat for an anti-woman's magazine pessimist.

It's not mindblowing, but it is fun, and the eco/fair ethos seems genuine enough not to be merely a marketing gimmick. Still, it's not different enough that I'll subscribe but I will get it now and then when it's fun. Or offering body shop bait.

© L Wade 2009 - submitted only on dooyoo.

Summary: Better than most but still not all that different to Red or other womans monthlies.