Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness

I loved them back in the day.

@HappyFourTeeth. I attended one of those VIP day things (god knows why). Found a photo recently of me with male model Steve who must have been about 18 and was clearly uncomfortable having to cuddle 14 year old girls. He was the heartthrob at the time and all my mates adored. Found out that he managed to forge a decent career and is now an actor - Steve John Shephard. Apparently he’s been in Eastenders and other stuff. I still remember him as a gangly but beautiful man of my 14yo dreams.

I had Just17, Mizz and More? (I think!) myself and my four friends would pour over ‘Position of the fortnight’ when 3 of us were still virgins 🤣

www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/05/comics-jackie-jacqueline-wilson

Jackie of Jackie magazine went on to create Tracy Beaker

The ‘tip’ that sticks in my mind was one that said to cover your hair in mayonnaise, cover with cling film and leave for an hour. To get shiny hair of course. It was utterly foul and took weeks to get my hair back to normal.

My workmate brought a load of Just 17s into work last week - they are every bit as brilliant as I remembered.

They seem quite fixated on ‘sheath’ use though - I guess it was the 80s. When did we stop saying ‘sheath’ and start saying ‘condoms’?

90's teen here and I loved magazines. I used to read all of them. Jackie and Hi to begin with then I moved to J17, More, Catch and Mizz then later New Woman (my favourite) and Company.

No-one ever seems to remember Catch but it used to have a nightclub section at the back where they would photograph and interview various clubbers. The questions always were "What are you Drinking?" Where the answer would often be Tia Maria and coke, and "Do you have your eye on anyone?". It all looked impossibly glamourous to 15 year old me. Does anyone else remember this? Xxx

Other advice given has already been mentioned about putting vinegar on your hair as a rinse, oatmeal on your face, using sugar to cleanse your pores.

They used to have picture stories as well and I remember a letter from an upset reader saying, 'Why do all your stories have girls who are considered plain but are suddenly stunningly beautiful once they take off their glasses? I wear glasses and I find it very upsetting.'

There was a response as well but I can't remember what it was.

Another thing that was popular at the time was Anne French cleansing milk for skin. My sister used to use it. And two tone lipstick.

Although they had their issues, all of my sex education came from teen mags. At age 15/16, even though I wasn’t having sex yet, I could tell you the pluses and minuses of condoms, the pill, the coil and injection. I certainly didn’t learn any of that from school or home.

I loved all of these magazines! Shout was an absolute staple in the late 90s when I was a preteen. Magazines were the only place you could get pictures of your celeb crushes, in the days before social media and google images. I remember poring through mags looking for pics of Leonardo Dicaprio to cut out and add to my collection

And then Mizz, J17, Sugar and More when I was older. Does anyone else remember the More sexy male centrefolds? The girls at school staged a feminist protest using these. We all had A2/A3 sized GCSE art & design folders with clear covers, and the boys would display page 3 photos of topless women or naked ladies in them. The teachers never said a word about it to them, so us girls decided to do it too and put More centrefolds of topless men or men with their bums out in ours. A few teachers tried to tell us off and say it was “inappropriate” and we absolutely raged and said we wouldn’t remove them until the boys had removed theirs. The teachers quickly gave up on the centrefold display issue!

How funny I was scrolling tiktok (shoot me) and someone had found an old mag from Sugar when they started doing Sugar Lad Mag and this was part of the magazine, Date Mate or Slate 😂

@Respectmyauthoritah hahahaha, this has absolutely cracked me up- I remember reading the same article and wondering what the chuff would be an appropriate song to hum. This has made my day

There was once a fantastic article in Shout that I hung on to for years - it was about school day ‘hacks’. They had make up ideas that wouldn’t be noticed by teachers (they actually worked - concealer, tinted lip balm, clear mascara!) and little tips for different lunches (baked potato wrapped in foil, anyone?) etc.

My best friend at school( still my bf) told me you couldn't get pregnant the first time you had sex. She knew this because she read it in a bloody stupid magazine. I found out it wasn't true when dd1 arrived.
We still laugh about it now anytime she mentions something that she has seen in a magazine.

Smash Hits and Number One magazine for me. Can't remember anything about the advice, but I remember how they used to take the piss out of Bros for still being in nappies, and I got a letter published slagging off Wet Wet Wet.

Which was the one where you sent in pics of your boyfriends bum? A whole page of spotty teenagers arses if I remember

There was also one with a Super problem page where you had a 'chat' (about 4 questions) with a 'therapist'. There was one where this girl hadnt enjoyed her first time having sex, after the allotated 4 questions it was deduced that she must be a lesbian. Her reaction was something like 'oh I didnt realise thanks for explaining '
This was the 90s

I remember one of the sex tips from More was to hum while giving a blowjob. Apparently the vibrations from your throat would 'enhance his pleasure'. To this day, when I picture some poor women giving an enthusiastic blowjob that sounds like a swarm of bees it still gives me the giggles!

My DD was a teenager early 2000s. She didn’t buy the mags but got some from a friend. I had a peek at problem page and there was info about blow jobs 😳. She is now a science teacher 👩‍🏫 who does sex education.

They did always make me feel like everyone else was having this amazingly fun filled life of parties and boys. I suppose they reflected the life I actually had at 16.

You've hit the nail on the head. The teenage version of lifestyle aspiration is being older, so they attract 13 year old readers by writing about them as if they were 16 year olds.

I doubt many 17 year olds were reading 'Just Seventeen' but it was hugely popular with 14 year olds.

The best thing about SHOUT magazine is they used to have these really cool “ghost editions” and you use to get this free teen ghost stories book with the mag.

I used to love Just 17 (I think) My boyfriend and I, who is now DH, used to always try out position of the week 😂 There were some crazy ones.

I used to take the words in these mags as gospel truth...which lead me to use some weird things to "condition" my hair. Vinegar. Eggs (god, that was a mess!).

It was only years later, when my friend worked for one of these mags, that I realised the people writing this stuff were just winging it and writing any old shit. I soon realised this was true for most magazines for adult women too, and have been a subscriber to New Scientist ever since!

Boil and eat a whole cauliflower if you're hungry. It makes a great snack and it's only 25 calories!

Apart from not being appetising , I'm not sure a fart attack afterwards is going to attract the "fit lad you met at the swimming pool" no matter how much clear lippy or dewberry perfume you're wearing!!