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?

@MistySkiesAfterRain oh yes definitely, but at least you’d get some actual articles and journalism with them. I fondly remember the days when Vogue and Elle used to publish short stories by decent writers! And proper literary book reviews and serious journalism and everything. You’d wade through the ads and enjoy the fashion but there would actually be proper articles too. Now there’s only ads and product and the few articles they have are mostly short interviews with celebs and recycled stuff from American magazines.

@MercyBooth - yes Sam Baker was great! Used to love the Red Christmas issue. I haven’t got a copy of Red for literally years now ☹️

We still have freebie CDs we got from a mag called Vox

Not a "free gift" exactly, but who else remembers the Music Box series? I'm sure I still have them somewhere.

Oh I actually have some free CDs somewhere still from Elle and a couple of other magazines with mixes of chillout / ambient music - one called Elle Cafe I remember!

Must have been from around 2006/2007-ish.

What happened? Wasn’t that, like, yesterday? 😩

@irresistibleoverwhelm I know what you mean Ive started to feel a bit depressed about getting older lately. Another free gift i got from NW was a small bag. Black with off white or cream round handles. I hung it up in the back of the shop i worked in and i used it to take the money from the till into the bank inside that bag. That was 2003. Seems like yesterday but 18 fucking years ago. I was 30 then.

Can’t remember the magazine, but tapes with classical music. Looking back, they were the ClassicFM type of classical music (only the popular arias etc), but there was a whole series of them and I used to love them. The magazine had interesting articles about composers, musical instruments etc.

That magazine and those tapes were the only classical music I ever listened to! It was Capital FM (95.8?) at all other times!

Just found this.

www.21newmedia.com/new-woman-magazine/

The Just17 comb was ace, mine was pink and had ‘dreams can come true’ (a la Gabrielle) on the handle. No idea where it went but had it for years!

Pink signet ring free with Lady Penelope.

One of the freebie CDs i had. I also had the one in my previous link.

www.discogs.com/Various-New-Woman-One-For-The-Road/release/2052650

A flexidisc with The Unexplained magazine that claims to be recordings of the voices of the dead. It's extremely weird and unnerving - I've still got it.

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 so sad. I really miss decent magazines. She magazine was great in the 80s; I used to love that one.

Free Nalis Inc nail varnishes with Glamour & Marie Claire magazines, I got a lovely orangy red one that matched a handbag I had, wore it for years.

I used to love the magazines of the early 2000s. I'd always get Sugar and Marie Claire, my sister used to get Bliss. I'd sometimes get Glamour as well. Sugar was my favourite though. I'd sign up for a year subscription and I remember it once came with a massive box of original source shower gels.

Haven't bought a magazine in years.

Belly button jewels with mizz over 20 years ago. I remember me and my friend walking around trying to keep them in and thinking we were the bees knees 🤣

I remember as a younger tween loving the inflatable spice girls that came with a magazine, can't think which one.

I was into UK boy bands so bought a lot of uk mags, remember a lot of inflatable photo frames etc. my mum worked so hard to decorate my room and then I went and put all that tat over it.

Another one using a free spatula from Good Food magazine.

Mine has to be about 10 years old and is blue silicone with a metal handle, it's brilliant.

I have small serving trays from a magazine. I can't remember which magazine but they had two designs. I loved my tray so I went back another day and got the second design too. I use those trays to serve biscuits or organise the craft bits i'm using.

A heart brooch from Jackie. It had a zig zag cut down the middle, and you could wear the brooch either as a whole, or -if your heart had just been broken by some dastardly boy- you could wear it with the heart cracked open.

Each half came on separate issues so there was some anxiety about getting the entire thing.

It was BEAUTIFUL shiny red plastic.

@2catsandhappy I remember that belt. It would never stay in a whole piece. I had an older sister and we used to,argue over all of the Jackie free gifts.

I worked in a small newsagents when I was a teen. We used to take the free gifts and keep them behind the counter or people were more likely to rob the magazine
When we'd send back the unbought magazines we'd keep the gifts and I'd get free first pick because I was the only one willing to sort through the box.
The local kids loved me as any I was particularly fond of got free tat from the box.

Ooh, so many:

• a body spray that came with Just Seventeen and was actually Just Seventeen branded - similar to the Impulse ones but I absolutely adored the exact scent of this one and can still smell it in my head.
• a Jenny Colgan book called “Do You Remember the First Time?” that may have come with Company.
• cool indie tapes from NME and Melody Maker.
• a beach bag from possibly Company or Red or one of those.
• a metal snaffle belt, in about 1999/2000, from (I think) More.

My favourite magazine by far was Just Seventeen, and I really only bought others (apart from the music ones) if they did have good free gifts - so I guess as a lure they worked well on me!

Flexible 7" records on Smash Hits. I only remember getting two of them, but they were really good freebies.

Red was great for free things. It's just too expensive to buy magazines now though, I'd rather get a paperback novel for less money!

I had a pair of sunglasses that came free with I think maybe Grazia. I had them for years and I've never found another pair anywhere that suit me so well.

@queenjaneappro

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

@queenjaneappro I have a comb too that I still use! I think mine came from Shout Magazine though 😆