After picking up an Essence magazine from a local Barnes & Nobles, I began to slowly flipping through the pages. The magazine was different than any other magazine I had read before; it was for African-American women. I could tell this right away due to the use of only black models. There were many other things that were different about this magazine than a more mainstream magazine such as Vogue, but the most important part is the news stories.

At first glance Essence seems like a typical lifestyle magazine, discussing matters such as; makeup, skin care, and hair tips. The more I read into it though; I could tell these stories were made for African-American women. In a featured article, Michele Obama discusses how she is trying to urge African-American students to attend some sort of schooling after high school. The magazine is filled with articles on the success stories of African-American women and their trials and tribulations on their road to victory. One article I found very interesting called “Missing While Black,” discusses the lack of media coverage for African-American children who go missing compared to white children. Of the 33.2 percent of children that are African-American, the media only covers 19.5 percent. As I finally got to the beauty section, I noticed something else very interesting; they used darker complexioned caricature girls to show different skin problems. Furthermore, one skin problem discussed was hyperpigmentation, a skin condition that is more prevalent in certain ethnicities, African being one of them. In the Entertainment section, featured only articles about Black entertainers including Halle Berry and Chadwick Boseman. Another interesting fact about this magazine was it had multiple stories about raising children; this became understandable when I looked up the demographics for Essence and its target audience is 18-49 year old women with 46% of their audience having children.

Advertisements were also a very noticeable difference from Vogue. Not only did almost every ad have a colored model, there was an ad in Essence for lipstick with “shades for every skin tone.” The abundance of ads for hair products was unmistakable, most of them advertising products for natural hair and anti-breakage treatments. Hair dyes and hair moisturizers made especially for African-American women were everywhere. Hair extensions are also something advertised throughout the pages. An ad for the WNBA surprised me; you would never see an ad like that in Vogue, which is probably due to the high percentage of African-Americans in the league. Other ads include; one for a new cheerleading show with a predominantly black cast and a personal empowerment series by Steve Harvey and Lisa Nichols. The last couple pages of Essence are full of ads, including two companies that are to be used to fundraise by selling African-American gifts, and more hair and skin products.

After reading Essence, I decided to read Vogue to directly compare the two. They both target about the same age group, but Vogue has a circulation of 1,246,765 (Circulation Demographics, n.d.) while Essence’s is 1,050,000 (Essence 2014 Media Kit, 2014). In Vogue there is a lot more high-end companies who are advertising, such as Prada, Dior, and Marc Jacobs. The cost of a Cover 2 ad in Vogue is $217,557 while Essence runs about $143,000. Another large difference between the two magazines is the difference between their audience’s median household incomes; Vogue’s is about 10,000 dollars higher. This increase in income is probably the reason for the pricier companies ads. The differences between the two magazines are pretty obvious, but the similarities are definitely there. Both have very inspiration African-Americans on the cover, Michele Obama on Essence and Lupiita Nyong’o on Vogue. Some of the same ads are also featured like Camel cigarettes and Tacori jewelry. The topics of both magazines are likewise similar, ranging from style to beauty to health and entertainment. A huge difference between the two is the amount of ads; Vogue had 11 pages of ads before its first actual page. Vogue is full of inspirational stories, just like Essence, and even skin care tips too. In Vogue, there are all white models, and mostly white advertisement models unlike Essence. Vogue is also about 20 pages longer than Essence. Both magazines have an article about Chadwick Boseman being cast to play James Brown in the new movie Get On Up. Without the amount of ads in Essence that were completely geared towards the African-American women, you probably wouldn’t have been able to tell who the target audience was by just flipping through.

After reading Essence and Vogue, I can understand why African-American women might chose to pick up Essence instead of Vogue. Essence covers more topics I feel like they would care about, and also products they may prefer to use over some of the ones featured in Vogue. I also thought it was interesting most of the Essence articles compared themselves to white people, like in the one article where they compared the level of income related to students test results between the two races. It’s crazy to think that African-Americans are still comparing themselves to Caucasians after equality has been such a pressing issue for so long. I honestly enjoyed reading Essence because I learned things I would never learn from Vogue or any other mainstream magazine. Then again, its kind of sad that African-Americans feel as if they need to have their own magazine because mainstream ones do not talk about things they want to hear. I hope maybe one day there can be publications that absolutely everyone can relate to an enjoy together.