I've been buying allure nearly every month since the beginning of this year. I didn't enjoy allure at all when I was younger, maybe because it's got many articles rather than fancy photos of beauty products, but now I enjoy reading every single article in the magazine. As for Japanese mags, we have like 5 monthly beauty mags here. I usually don't buy Japanese magazines (including fashion / lifestyle ones) because they are quite boring to me, but recently I've been enjoying reading beauty magazines such as Voce, Maquia, Bea's up and Biteki.
Every 2-3 months, my fellow blogger Mel from The Beauty Dispensary exchange magazines. I send her one or two beauty mags from Japan, and she sends me a couple of Australian (or sometimes British as she knows I'm into the UK) mags. This month I bought Maquia for her -or let's say, to share with her since I've read through too- so I thought to show you what the difference is between allure and Maquia!
First of all, allure always features amazing models and celebrities. Most of the time they are the mature and independent women which I think is great. I hate it when a magazine targeting grown women features teenage idols. It disappoints me a lot.
As you can see, the photos in allure are very artistic. In my opinion their photos are similar to the ones in Vogue, from an aesthetic perspective.
Let's see what's inside of Maquia now then.
In the Japanese beauty magazines, there are quite a lot of articles about How-To. How to wear black and blown on your eyes at the same time, how to wear red lips, how to apply foundation in the "correct" way, how to shape your brows blah blah blah.
Product suggestions / recommendations according to different lifestyles / likings.
A calender with the information of new products is pretty useful.
This month, Maquia came with this additional magazine which shows all the new products which will be launched in this autumn.
The conclusion is, that Japanese beauty magazines have much more volume of information. Everything is in detail and you get all the information you need from the articles.
If you are interested in Japanese beauty products, these magazines are a must-read! I'm sure you will enjoy it even though you don't read Japanese. If you do read Japanese, even better. The mags have so much information about products, skin, makeup techniques and more. I wish there was a UK beauty magazine like these...! I've been reading TWO magazine created by Pixiwoo sisters on my iPhone but you know how hard it is to read a mag on your iPhone. It's ridiculous.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the comparison of the biggest US beauty magazine and my favourite Japanese beauty magazine!