What free gifts with magazines do you remember fondly?

[Takenoprisoner]

I loved the gifts that came with magazines. Some were of course crap, like no name mascaras and nail sets that had the magazine branding on them, utter rubbish.

Others were brilliant, I remember fondly:

Lipstick case with sugar magazine

A clear plastic tote with Elle, which I still miss

A small denim bag, again, Elle, which i still have

Various clutch bags with glamour magazine

Roomy beach bags with Red magazine

T shirts with Instyle magazine

Silk scarves, High st mascaras, bikinis

I really miss those little freebies. It's better for the environment that they don't do those any more of course.

Also, I really miss magazines from the late 90s, which is when I started reading them, they were great and many are defunct now.

I loved Elle magazine, 90s era
Real magazine
Company
More
Look
Glamour.

What magazines or magazine freebies do you remember?

More gave away something similar..............Men A Users Guide.

i’ve got a little mirror that i got from mizz magazine when i was about thirteen, and it’s still going strong almost seventeen years later! every time i see one of my friends she always asks if i’ve still got my trusty mirror i’ve also got in the loft (rather embarrassingly!) a folder full of sex tips of the week from more magazine that i hole punched and put in a folder to save!

I once had a letter printed in Scarlet magazine.

I had the Just 17 comb too. Until I snapped it in half accidentally

Yes i bought 19 a few times too.

@queenjaneappro

A blue wide tooth comb from Just 17 that I still use. Must be over 25 years old!

I came on here to say this exact comb! Mine broke only a few months ago. It was brilliant and used a lot by me and dd. We were both sad we had to replace it.

The “Diary of a Crush” books written by Sarra Manning that came free with Just Seventeen/J17 in the 90’s. The were full length stories tying in with the story that was also published in the magazine every month.

I still have two of the books to this day and I’ll never part with them. I feel like they genuinely opened my eyes up to there being more exciting boys out in the world than the average curtain haired Ben Sherman wearing chav that I went to school with, because of the main characters crush Dylan who was floppy haired, low slung baggy jean wearing “art boy” she met at college.

Edie 4 Dylan I.D.S.T.F.E.M.

90steenmagazinearchiveuk is on Instagram and shows all the best stuff from magazines from that era. Warning: you will probably lose an hour looking through it!

A record of 'acorn green forever' featuring david bellamy. I cant remember what comic it was from but i played it loads

@ZealAndArdour She does the book reviews for Red.

When i was a teen i loved the Sweet Valley High books. Looking back now they were awful. No diversity at all and a character called Robin Wilson was treated like shit until she lost weight.

@MercyBooth - oh I loved Eve! And Easy Living 😭 I actually subscribed to Easy Living for a while, and I remember them sending me a survey to ask why their circulation had dropped or something, when they got a new editor. My response was that it used to be great when it first came out, but then they became absolutely obsessed with cosmetic surgery - and it was true, one of the editors seemed to just completely fill it with stuff on how as soon as you got past 40 you must rush to have as many procedures as possible. It folded shortly after ☹️ A real shame!

I had a flexi disc. Cant remember what comic or mag it was free with but one side was Room to Move by Climie Fisher Other side was Endless Summer Nights by Richard Marx.

Jackie magazine. One week they had a 'free belt' a clear plastic flattened tube with buckle. Inside the issue you cut out a tape measure. Say, 16" to 32". This you threaded into the flat tube. The next week was tape measure 0" to 15" which you finished the belt with. When you put it on, your waist measurement was showing in the buckle. I wish I had kept it! Don't imagine I will ever see 23" waist again.

A small denim bag, again, Elle, which i still have

I think I had this for years!

Sunglasses for Summer. It used to be freebie competitiveness between the magazines. A few still do them.

@irresistibleoverwhelm YY And EL shrunk to Glamour size and had a new sex section for a few months just before folding.
Eve had one of the first articles i remember seeing about coercive control in relationships. "does your partner tell you what to eat or try to control your weight" Not the exact title but close to it.

Got some free sunglasses from Tatler a couple of months ago.

@MercyBooth I just saw on her Instagram page. I might DM her and ask for the word file of the entirety of Diary of a Crush. I’d love to read it again.

Oh and Prozac Nation which appeared as a giveaway. I think I really was too young to read it. It seemed such an American problem (and yet here we are).

It is a shame overall really, I know the industry probably thinks it’s folding because of the internet - but actually I stopped reading magazines because the content got so minimal and uninteresting. I’d read them again if there was actually interesting stuff in them to read.

I have even given up buying the Christmas issues of magazines these days - Good Housekeeping Christmas issue used to be a joy and really chunky to get through, but all the actual articles now seem to have been replaced these days with the same pictures of Nigella Lawson, Mary Berry and Clare Balding every year 😂🤦‍♀️ Bring back magazines with actual content in them!

Benefit mascara with Company was the best value freebie I remember. I used to get Twinkle and Bunty from my great aunt who worked in a newsagents, she used to always give me lots of toys and things that I assume now she took from the front of magazines when sending them back to the distributor unsold. Later, she would bring me the Beano, Dandy, J17, Mizz, More (although my mum wasn't aware of that because she didn't approve). I don't think my great aunt checked the content before bringing these for me though

@irresistibleoverwhelm The Christmas issue of Red used to be a chunky size too. When Sam Baker was editor.

@irresistibleoverwhelm

Oh I used to love the free books in the 90s - great for holiday reading. I really used to like Elle and Marie-Claire way back when they had actual content - like long form photo journalism essays on global issues, and short stories. And genuinely interesting long articles on psychology, relationships and sex - properly informative and female-oriented, not just the pornified sex tips stuff that came later.

In the 2000s, I used to love those beach bags that came with Red and would use them all summer - they were properly sturdy, especially the ones with the rope handles. (I ordered a few things from Red Direct too, I remember some gorgeous mercurified candlesticks I bought from them!)

I also remember fondly a really nice soft (and surprisingly good quality) vest that came with Elle magazine some time in the 2000s - sort of pale blush pink with gold stitching and a racer back. Wore it as a pyjama vest for years!

It’s sad really, I used to enjoy magazines and I read Cosmo, Vogue, Elle and Marie-Claire regularly from about 14 to about 30. Especially on a journey or on holiday, they were a real treat. Then the quality and content really dropped and I just found them totally lacking in the interest they used to have. Obviously part of it is getting older and having different priorities - I’ve barely opened a magazine since I had my DD, and I care a lot less about makeup and fashion and what’s the in bar in London. But I also miss the fact that way back when, women’s magazines seemed to have actual interesting content, and now you can flip through them in a few minutes and find only ads, nothing of interest and nothing to read - no article’s more than a page or half a page!

It’s a shame as we were discussing on another thread the genuinely good female-focused sex and relationships advice those magazines used to have, and now there’s very little of that about, they’re all basically purely vehicles for selling luxury “product”. Women’s magazines as a source of advice and information seem to have died a death.

Oh I think they always were selling products, in the 90s anyway. There'd be whole sections selling things at the back. Also magazines like Vogue had soooo many pages of adverts.

Do you remember perfume sniffies or tasters? I used to take them out and properly use them as perfumes, for like the 2 goes they worked for. In the big magazines you'd get about 3 an issue.

I still have some of the Mix Mag free CDs like Global Underground, 90s dance anthems and a Big Issue CD.

The lullaby tape that came with mother and baby magazine in either 94 or 95. Would love to find those songs again.