The time is NOW (Now)

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	Now
Date:	02/03/09 (175 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Light hearted gossip mag, good photos

Disadvantages: None

The time is NOW

Now magazine is a celebrity gossip magazine. It costs £1.30 per week.

Now is my guilty coffee break pleasure. From looking at the front cover you will see that the magazine is always glossy and shiny and features about 6 or 7 celebrities all the front, all with various headline grabbing captions, teasing you into wanting to read more and thus having to buy the magazine. At £1.30 it is not as costly as some other gossip magazines, such as OK or Hello but it is a lot thinner and not as good in my opinion but if you're after a bit of gossip and a bit of fashion, then this is the magazine for you!

The first 20 pages or so feature the stories that are alluded to on the front page. These are accompanied by lots of glossy photos and about half a page of text telling you about the story. The photos are of quite a good quality and definitely taken with the story in mind. For example, this week we had Louisa Lytton (Ex-Eastenders) in a bikini in Dubai, Jordan and Cheryl Cole in LA and Denise Van Outen planning her wedding. The stories and generally very up to date and topical and feature the soap opera type stars/pop stars that are famous today. They do also feature quite a lot of the Hollywood stars as well so you get a bit of everything in this magazine.

What I like about this magazine as compared to some other cheap gossipy ones is that they do include quite a bit of fashion in it. They generally always have two pages which are headed, "The week in Fashion" where they have stars and the clothes they wore to different events during the week. It's quite nice to see all the pretty expensive dresses and shoes and rate who looks good and who doesn't! They also have quite a few pages of fashion from the high street, so things that the average person can afford. They often do a page where they put a look together. THis week for example, they had, "New ways to wear denim," which featured tops, jeans and bags as well as photos of famous people wearing them to show that the pieces are on trend and that it's what to wear right now.

They also cover quite a bit of celebrity tit-bits, gossip etc such as "LoveBites." This section tells you who is now dating who, who has broken up and who is back together etc.

They have a few interviews in the magazine too where they will pick a celebrity from tv or the like and then ask them questions such as their current projects, what they are hoping to do in the future etc so if you like that person you can find out quite a bit about them.

The other thing I like about this magazine is that they have a really good beauty section in it. They generally have a special Now promotion where they test out a new product and show you how it works for your skin etc and how to put different looks together. This week they featured Olay Touch of Foundation and put it on a girl with fair skin(me), medium skin and dark skin. THis was great as it's like they've tested the product for you so all you need to do, if you like it, is now go out and buy it, safe in the knowledge that it is right for you. Now generally always features some great make up products too.

One of the other things they have in this magazine is always a real life story too which is nice and a bit different than reading about celebrities all the time. THis is generally a teary story or one of hope and determination and always quite interesting to read.

As with most other magazines, Now offers a competition is every episode (this week you can win a holiday), a problem page with Dr Dawn (usually quite funny), diet news, puzzles, horoscopes and a tv guide.

All in all, I would say, if you're looking for a light hearted magazine to read during your coffee break (as you will probably get through this magazine in about 30 minutes) then Now is the one for you!

Summary: NOW Magazine