[008] battle of the mags.

Company is pretty much the best woman's magazine. I've read them all by now, seeing as I'm constantly waiting for some sort of public transport, and reading about clothes I cannot afford, celebrities I don't care about and health regimes I'll never try has surprisingly become an enjoyable hobby of mine. Anyway, why is Company better or different than anything else ?

Take Heat for example. Heat is, for some reason, one of (if not the) most popular magazine in the UK. It's specialty subject is celebrities. Nothing but celebrities. They have a letters page or something, but everything else is completely dedicated to famous people. Many of which are obviously famous for no reason, but that's another issue altogether, let's not get into that. Heat claim to have a 'style' section, but it's merely pointing out nice and horrible things celebrities are wearing, or where to get your celebrity-worshiping hands on stuff that looks like what celebrities might wear. To be honest, if you're this obsessed with celebrities, you can get gossip, oh I'm sorry, I meant 'information', like this for free and far more instant from sites like Oh No They Didn't, Perez Hilton and Holy Moly.

Heat is not as bad as the atrocities known as Hello and OK. These magazines are more or less the same as Heat, but instead of at least attempting to critique these people, Hello and OK suck up to them so much, it's impossible to see where the interviewers end the celebrities begin, if you catch my drift.

Closer is a magazine that is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. It contains the usual tabloid tales of the rich and the famous, but also over the top 'real life' stories (e.g. 'I married my grandfather', 'I have 56ZZ breasts') and little bits about cosmetics and fashion. I believe about 40% of what I read in Closer, but it's a good laugh, and it entertains. And what else do you need/want from a trashy mag ?

I buy More every week because it's the only weekly magazine that doesn't make me want to occasionally gauge my eyes out. It has small sections on celebrities, but mostly contains articles that are useful to every day life. Advice and tips on beauty, fashion, even romance and your sex life, are all covered here, as well as interesting articles on things that was important to women today.

Cosmopolitan is a big one, and I'm not going to slag it off even though it does sometimes give the impression that all women are celebrity-crazed nymphomaniacs. Cosmo was the first magazine I started religiously buying. It contains interviews with celebrities, proclaiming how wonderful they are, but there are actually appealing aspects of the magazine. Articles including advice like there are in More are included, but usually much more in depth and useful, as well as campaigns to make lives better. Their campaign against sunbeds is a good example, and has had strong support from MPs in the House of Commons. Sections on fashion, sex and work are a main feature too, giving you a breather from the barrage of how amazing famous people are.

Grazia is the biggest load of trollop I have ever witnessed. This magazines claims to be intelligent and even 'cutting edge', but it's like that popular girl at school who everyone thinks is amazing and starts trends, but is actually just copying them from the homeless woman behind the shopping centre. I know that analogy didn't make much sense, but Grazia is awful and everyone needs to accept this. Every issue it counts down the ten or so most important events that have happened in the past week. If Angelina Jolie had had a face lift and the cure for cancer was found in the same week, Angelina would be #1, while the cure would be #5. In the advice section of this magazine [which has a specialist plastic surgery agony aunt, completely supporting that every woman everywhere should have as much surgery as possible] someone asked, 'what is the correct shade of lipstick to wear this season', and they were given the answer 'orange'. No, that's incorrect. Grazia is far too obsessed with trends and making sure everyone looks the same. Wear what shade of lipstick suits you, not what is trendy. Grazia is for sheep.

Glamour is based mostly on the title. Obsessed with clothes and make up, I can usually read through this in about half an hour or so, so it's not amazing value for money. Also some of the fashion it includes can be a bit overpriced. The real life stories are inspirational however, and does contain some very good advice on what clothes suit which figure and shape.

Company reins supreme over all though. It's intelligent without being pretentious, and likes to get involved with politics and current issues. The problem pages are informative without being patronising, and the fashion section includes clothes and cosmetics for every budget. It contains every positive I've mentioned in the previous magazines, with none of the negative. The only downside however, is that this magazine does seem to be a bit of a slave to trends occasionally, but luckily, gives you options on how to make these trends work for your style, image and figure.

So if you ever end up standing in front of the vast women magazines section in the newsagents, completely confused and overwhelmed by the selection, keep my advice in mind. If you want celebrities, go for Heat or Hello. If you want substance; Company or More.