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Chat Women's Magazine
by Karen1985
My first recollection of Chat magazine was as a child/young teenager, stealing my mums copy and laughing at the cute baby and animal pictures which always feature on the Reader Write In pages. As I grew up I continued to take an interest in Chat magazine, and now, aged 28 with 2 young children of my own it is a firm favourite in my ... weekly purchases.
It allows me the chance to "escape" for 10 minutes here and there and is sometimes nice to know that your life isn't as bad as it could be. The stories are "real life" and are true stories submitted by readers. I can't get on with all of these celebrity gossip mags which seem to line almost all of the newsagents shelves, but as chat is real life it has proper peoples lives to read about. And it is much more interesting to gossip with your friends about "real life" than fantasy.
Each story is in general 1-2 pages in length, making it ideal or a quick read with a cuppa, then pick up again next time to read the next story. This is ideal for me as I don't get much break time.
The stories are often sad stories, but often feature some sort of happy or at least positive outcome. You will find stories about birth traumas, death traumas, murders, rapes, animals, crimes, theft, adultery and anything that can happen in real life. There is also weekly cookery, horoscope, health, diet and fitness, fashion, tv, agony aunt and reader handy tips sections.
The crosswords and code breaker puzzles also feature heavily within the magazine, all with fantastic prices of between £25 and £3000 in value. I always complete them, but unfortunately never get around to sending them in so I can't comment on the likeliness of winning from them.
I would highly recommend this magazine to any woman between the ages of 18 and 85 (although men do tend to steal it and sneakily read the stories as well.) It is fantastic value, released on a weekly basis at only 86p an issue and between 70-80 pages in length. Most of these pages are actual reading or crossword pages as well, so not to much as far as junk style adverts go so you really do get value of money.
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Cosmopolitan
by bringingsexyback
WHAT IS IT?
Cosmopolitan is a glossy womans magazine that is published monthly.
WHAT'S IN IT?
This is a magazine for women who like fashion and cosmetics mostly because there are a lot of fashion pages and adverts for expensive skin care and make up. There are interviews in the magazine and very often ... they are from the fashion world, if regular people are featured it is for better reasons than magazines like Take A Break and their stories hit you harder.
There are celebrity interviews but Cosmopolitan make long and in depth for one big celebrity instead of a lot of short meaningless interviews. That is better I think and shows that the magazine has got more class.
WHAT I THINK
I like to buy Cosmopolitan not for myself but for something to offer to my clients to read while I am doing their make up or hair. A lot of my ladies do not like this magazine and there is a type of lady who will read it, they are usually younger ladies with a bigger interest in clothes and beauty techniques than my older clients.
You can buy Cosmopolitan in a normal magazine size and a smaller copy that will fit better in your bag so that you can read it while you are out of the home easier. Very often they have a free gift on the cover and that is always worth more than the magazine, sometimes I have bought it just for the free gift because they are always beauty items and that is a good way to try something new.
I get very angry because there are very many adverts in this magazine and I feel sometimes that I am paying for these companies to advertise their products so the magazine should be cheaper. The adverts are all high class but there are too many, sometimes there are sachets of skin cream or foundations stuck to the adverts but that is not very often now and the expensive brands do not give these samples out in Cosmopolitan anymore.
I do not like the problem pages or the horoscopes in Cosmopolitan and some issues I do not offer to my clients if I think there is too much sexual content inside. I think Cosmopolitan has too much sex in some issues and they think that makes them modern but it makes the magazine tacky, I do not think this is required so much.
A lot of the fashion in Cosmopolitan is for ladies who have a perfect figure and that is a pity because they say this is a magazine for all women but that is not true for the fashion. I think their holiday features too much for women with no families also and the advice or destinations are not very thoughtful for people with children to think about or people who are on a budget.
3 Dooyoo Stars.
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Take A Break
by cornishchic
When I was growing up my nan would buy Take a Break on a weekly basis and I often helped her do the puzzles inside. She always sent off for the competitions and after winning a Super Ted toy set I was hooked and loved helping her. Now I'm older I've followed in her footsteps and often buy it for myself too. I'm not one for fashion ... magazines but prefer this as it is more my scene with the real life stories and puzzles to waste away 10 minutes.
Take a Break is issued every week on Thursdays. The standard issue costs 84p but they occasionally sell special seasonal editions which cost a little more. Take a Break can be found on sale from anywhere that sells magazines such as supermarkets and corner shops.
It's safe to say that reading this isn't too hard, it is written in simple English and it's really easy to read without becoming confused about words or phrases used. The majority of the stories featured in each issue are real life stories, these are usually on a variety of different subjects and create a variety of different emotions. From crazy, deranged partners, sick family members, murders and fundraising for poorly children, literally everything has been covered in their real life stories.
One of the main reasons some people buy this magazine is down to the puzzles. It features a variety of different brain teasers from a basic word search and code breaker to more complex puzzles that require more brain power such as a crossword and arrow word. The puzzles have the same format every week and are usually placed around the same page number each issue. For example, a tiny 4x4 basic arrow word type puzzle is always on the first double page spread. The prizes for the competitions are usually pretty hefty too, a brand new car and huge 4 or 5 figure cash sums are normally included with smaller prizes for some puzzles.
The magazine is definitely focused on the reader with the first double page spread containing pictures that readers have sent in, from funny moments to cute children. Readers also have the chance to send in their own savvy tips, letters and short stories. These don't feature as much as the longer real life stories but it breaks it up a little as you read through.
Towards the end of the magazine you will find a couple of pages on beauty, cooking, health, horoscopes and the like, readers can send in their questions and some get answered and published. I like these pages as the information Take a Break give is realistic and this gives readers genuine ideas for where to buy clothes and beauty products and not stupid ideas that cost a lot of money.
Take a Break definitely isn't a magazine you should read if you want to have an intellectual read. It is more suited to have a read when you're sitting down with a cup of tea, passing ten minutes. I usually read through the magazine quite quickly but then have it lying around for days as I do the different puzzles. It's one of the cheaper magazines to purchase yet it's one of my favourites and something I will continue to buy in the future.
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