Jezebel: contests

Contest: Your Turn To Go Rogue

Anna N. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:40:00 EST

Yesterday, a few of our readers wondered if we paid actual money for the copy of Going Rogue we reviewed. We did, but you can win it back — to turn into awesome Palin art. Details after the jump.

If you've got a great idea for transforming Sarah Palin book into more than the sum of its parts — hollowing it out and filling it with Moose Tracks ice cream, say, or folding the pages into an origami death panel — email us at tips@jezebel.com by Friday at 5 PM EST, with "Going Rogue contest" in the subject line. We'll pick the best one and mail you our copy of the book. Then you have your way with the book, send us a pic, and we'll feature it on the site. I promise, it'll be a lot more fun than the all-nighter I pulled reading the thing — although in answer to your questions, I did have some cake.

Say My Name, Say My Name

Dodai — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:30:00 EDT

As a big fan of advertising icons, I'm intrigued by the contest to guess Mrs. Butterworth's first name. Is it wrong to hope it's not Mary? Xiomara, Zahara, or Quintana FTW! [EW]

Sticky Situation

Sadie — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:30:00 EST

Duct Tape sponsors an annual competition, "Stuck at Prom", in which high school students make duct tape formalwear. The incentive? Scholarship money - and, one presumes, a totally waterproof gown. [Mental-Floss]

LOLVogue: I Can Haz Locayshun Shewt? (Plus Contest!)

Dodai — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Even though the November issue of Vogue has a lovely fashion spread featuring Natalia Vodianova, her husband and kids, it was too busy to LOL. On the other hand, the "Chill Factor" spread, inspired by global warming and vacations (no, really) was almost too boring to LOL: How many times can we see an expressionless moddle on a beige background, jumping? Even though the shoot is dull, it's good fun to try and LOL anyway; and there's a contest, too! After the jump, as usual: We're in ur magazeen, puttin werds on ur moddles.

OMG. OH NOES. THIS MODDLE HAZ NO CAPSHUN. RITE A SUGGESSHUN IN TEH COMMINTZ!!!11!! TEH WINNR GITZ A CHEEZBURGR. SRSLY.

Earlier: LOLVogue: Teh Billee Goatz Gruff (And Contest!)
LOLVogue: I Can Haz Wind Tunnel?
LOLVogue: All Dat Glitterz Iz Mah Pantz
LOLVogue: Superhero Photo Shoot Gets Super Stoopid
French LOLVogue: I Can Has My Close-Up?
I Can Has Jeetann? C'est LOLVogue En Faux Français
LOLVogue: Teh Hare Toss & Teh Bunnee Hop
LOLVogue: Tard Moddles & Bahlinceeyagga
Bon Joor, C'est Paris LOLVogue Encore!
LOLVogue: Sheez Over Ayteen, I Sware
LOLVogue: Hungry Moddles & Rorschach Tests
LOLVogue: Carbs, Botox & Pink-Eye
LOLVogue: Good Help Is Hard To Find
Mon Dieu! C'est French LOLVogue: Shoulders, Champagne and Cigarettes
LOLVogue: Starving Models & Marionettes
LOL'Vogue': Scarves, Silverware & Scooters

Expensive Shit(Fight): We Have A Winner

Dodai — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Over the past week, Interns Anna and Margaret have done the tireless work (and we mean tireless) of adding up all of the expensive shit in the hefty September issues of the major women's magazines. Today saw a Gucci studded motorcycle jacket for $5,395; Elizabeth Arden Prevage Anti-Aging Treatment that'll cost you $155; a $1,750 Tiffany sapphire and platinum necklace — in Teen Vogue (!!!) — and previously, a $135,000 Louis Vuitton diamond-encrusted watch, a Chanel dress which would set one back $17,355 and a Fendi 24K-gold mink coat for $64,300. Earlier in the week, we asked you to guess the final total dollar amount of the crap in all the September issues, without going over. We have a total, and a winner! Results, after the jump.

The total amount of expensive shit being shilled in the September issues of Elle, Vogue, Bazaar, Lucky, Glamour, Marie Claire, W, and Allure: $6,949,006

The winner: Kimsama, who guessed $6,945,027.95, with a difference of $3,978.10.

CONGRATULATIONS!

E-mail dodai@jezebel.com to claim your prize. We'll be donating $200 in your name to the charity of your choosing… though that charity cannot be Condé Nast.

Thanks to everyone for playing.

Earlier: September Smackdown: Elle Vs. Vogue
September Smackdown: Allure Vs. Lucky
September Smackdown: Marie Claire Vs. Glamour
September Smackdown: Harper's Bazaar Vs. W

Reminders

Anna — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:30:00 EDT

Y'all have 30 minutes before we stop considering submissions for our Charity Case contest. Here's what you have to do: Go to this post and, in the comments, guess the total dollar amount of the priced merchandise appearing in the September issues of the following ladymags: Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, W, Marie Claire, Allure, Teen Vogue, Lucky & Glamour. The winner who comes closest to the actual number will have $200 donated to the charity of her or his choice. (The winner will be announced on Friday.)

Charity Cases: How Much Expensive Shit Is In The September Ladymags?

Dodai — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:20:00 EDT

As you know, we've been adding up the items in the thick September issues of the major women's magazines. And the extravagance is really quite vulgar! So far we've seen a $135,000 Louis Vuitton diamond-encrusted watch, a Chanel dress which would set one back $17,355 and a Fendi 24K-gold mink coat for $64,300. All this conspicuous consumption has given us an idea, with an urge to give back. And so, we present to you: A contest. Not just any contest! A conscience-clearing contest! Here's the deal:

We'll be adding up all of the totals from all of the major September mags (Elle, Vogue, Bazaar, Lucky, Glamour, Marie Claire, W, and Allure) into one whopping sum. (So far, Elle's Total Shit: $1,562,100 and Vogue's Total Shit: $957,687.)

The reader who can predict the final total dollar amount — without going over — will win a $200 donation to the charity of her or his choice. You may submit your guesses in the comments, and you have until 12 noon tomorrow, EDT.

Good luck, and remember: Mink. Dipped in gold.

Earlier: September Smackdown: Elle Vs. Vogue

Label Whores...Now For Everyone Else To Enjoy

Maria — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:30:00 EDT

Did you catch yesterday's "Label Whores", the experiment in which we pretended to pass off cheap clothes to consignment stores as high fashion designs? Well, to atone for those sartorial sins, we're going to pass off those cheap clothes to you... for free. That's right, we've created a sort of Jezebel giveaway for our readers, so if you're looking for some snappy — and may I say, work appropriate-ish — H&M duds let us know. But obviously, you are going to have to work for them:

Okay, so here are the giveaway rules: Name the author of the quote below (hint: she was a former editor-in-chief of a famous ladymag) in the comments, specifying your answer and the item of clothing you have your eye on. Tomorrow morning (9 a.m. EST) I will check back through the comments and randomly pick 4 people that answered with the correct answer and then contact the winning commenters. Winning commenters will have to specify their shipping information and the item must be shipped within the United States (we are footing the shipping costs) by yours truly, with a wink, a smile, and a handwritten note (I know, exciting!) from a wonderful Brooklyn mailing outpost.

Here are the items that will be given away:

Pink 100% silk knee-length dress with a v-neckline and pockets. Size (from H&M): 36/6 (which is equivalent to a small/medium). Original price: $69.90. Please specify "pink dress" in your answer if you want this item.

Black-and-white high-waisted, knee-length skirt with pleats. Size (from H&M): 34/4 (which is equivalent to a small or a 25/26 inch waist). This item sits at your natural waist. Original price: $49.90. Please specify "black-and-white skirt" in your answer if you want this item.

Tan knit top made from polyester and silk with a low back. This item has a small, non-visible hole on it from when I took off the tag. Size (from H&M): 36/6. Original price: $34.90. Please specify "tank top" in your answer if you want this item.

White sleeve-less tank top with two buttons, ruffle detail, and a tie around the waist. Very soft and made from polyester fabric. Size (from H&M): 34/4. Original price: $29.90. Please specify "white top" in your answer if you want this item.

None of the items have ever been worn outside of a H&M dressing room in SoHo.

And now (deep breath), the quote, who said this?:

As a single, self-supporting woman you have one great financial advantage. People will let you live within your means. When you make cute little economies like riding a bicycle to work, everyone stands at the curb and cheers. Just try serving hot dogs and Kool-Aid at your barbecue if you're wealthy!
Being smart about money is sexy. It is part of the attractive American career-girl image—being able to reconcile a checkbook, having something to reconcile, being able to pay your own way (only don't you dare!).

A note to commenters: Please keep negative sartorial judgments about other commenters to yourself. If you don't like an item — and I don't care if you are Anna Wintour—there is no need to judge or mock, even playfully, others who may like the item. These clothes are free and this contest is supposed to be fun, so let's keep it positive! Besides, if you don't like the item you can always sew a label on it and sell it for serious ca-ching (but don't do that, seriously).

UPDATE: The contest is over! The answer was former EIC of Cosmo Helen Gurley-Brown and the quote was taken from her book Sex And The Single Girl written in 1962. Congrats to CourtneeLC, Margette, AshleySlutz, and Sylvie Calls Shotgun!! who won the four items. Please check your commenter profile ladies! There is important info about claiming your prize.

See you guys next month!

Earlier: Label Whores: Selling Fake Fashion? Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

Hops To It

Maria — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:45:00 EDT

Last week, Julia Galvin travelled from Ireland to Finland to find a "husband" to carry her over a 253-meter track to win her weight (120 kg or 264 pounds) in beer. The contest Galvin competed in was an international affair held on July 4 said to stem from a 19th century legend in which a notorious thief, Ronkainen the Robber, made wannabe members of his posse carry grain or swine along a course. (So women are the natural replacement for pigs and grain?) Others claim that the contest stems from the "tribal practice of wife-stealing" (hence the need for fake husband and wife teams). Of course "wife stealing" was actually a tactic of war practiced all over Europe, but making it sound like an exotic "tribal practice" certainly does put a quaint spin on things! [Reuters]

Here's Our Winner! 'Redbook' Shatters Our 'Faith' In Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

Moe — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:09:59 EDT

It's time for the big reveal for our unretouched cover-image contest, and, well, our winner is the July cover of Redbook, on which country singer Faith Hill (and, on a separate cover, her hubby Tim McGraw) appeared as beautiful and accessible-seeming as usual. What's uncanny about this cover is that when the image was passed our way, we had just been flipping through Redbook, reminding ourselves that we'd stop hating women's magazines as soon as our lives became shitty enough to warrant reading Redbook and our husbands and immune systems suddenly replaced celebrities and consumerism on our personal Most Toxic lists, when we paused to think, "Wow, Faith Hill is really hot." We'd had this thought before about Faith Hill, probably in the context of a Revlon display at the CVS or something, but reading this spread in the July Redbook we had one of those moments we often have with Katie Holmes wherein we were like, "Wow. She is just really really really pretty. Although we don't much like her taste in men." Anyway, after the jump, we present the before and after of Faith Hill, Redbook magazine, July 2007. We'll be posting more on this throughout the day, including a point-by-point annotation (read: close-ups!) of just what Redbook editors/art directors found so abhorrent about an already-above-average 39-year-old country music star and mom to three that they had to retouch her into something more befitting the cover of Cosmopolitan.

Update: Some of you are complaining about the animation above, animation we worked long and hard to bring you. So ungrateful! But we anticipated that. That's why we've just put up this, uh, numerically-annotated version of the unretouched photo without animation. Compare, contrast, cackle, cry... whatever it is you guys do.

Update: Why we hate the fact that Redbook did this.

Update: What the blogosphere/mainstream media had to say about the photograph.

We Just Awarded Someone $10,000 For An Unflattering Celebrity Cover Photo!

Moe — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:10:51 EDT

Remember how, way back on May 21 we announced we'd bestow $10,000 to the individual courageous enough to send us an amazing cover photo from a women's magazine in all its hideously fat, wrinkled and cruelly unretouched radiance? Well, over the past few weeks we got a bunch of entries (thank you, working-class heroes!) and we're happy to announce that someone has won the contest, which means he/she got paid what takes us months to make by stealing something off the boss's server and hiring a hot courier to bring it to our office with a funny note. Of course, aggressively-retouched photos are nothing new, or even in and of themselves shameful, but the older we get, the crazier they make us, in a manner akin to the way magazine cover-lines starting with numerals and/or ending with the phrase "we can't live without" makes us want to hole up in our closets and get back into cutting. Magazine editors, please, stop the inanity!

Famous ladies are paid to be Botoxed, nipped, tucked, dieted, wardrobed, and accessorized to within 5 pounds of their life-sustaining weights as it is. All so some computer nerd can Photoshop away their every remaining vestige of humanity? Ugh. Anyway, stay tuned: In a few short hours we will post the winning entry — which beat out a very tempting example of the "incredible shrinking Jennifer Lopez syndrome"! — along with another little screed about Walt Disney himself depicted women more realistically than magazine art directors do nowadays.

Earlier: Unretouched Cover Photos: $10,000 Reward
Kelly Clarkson Has Junk In The Trunk And Other Things We Already Knew, Confirmed By A Professional Retoucher

Revisiting Our $10,000 Magazine Cover Reward

Anna — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:38:30 EDT

Last week we informed you that we're offering a $10,000 reward for the best unretouched women's magazine cover you people can cough up. Since then, we've got lots of juicy emails and tidbits* (including one from a magazine staffer who says her particular publication is scared shitless... yay!). But we want you to know that our offer still stands. As always, we promise your identity will remain anonymous... whether you win or lose. Send your submissions to tips@jezebel.com (standard Gawker Media contest rules apply). And as we said before, may the best (meaning: the most natural-looking) woman win!

*Including a number of accusations that our own "cover photo" was airbrushed or retouched, to which we say: Good lighting and the ability to contort our bodies so as to appear thinner can go a long way.