Back in March, while having coffee with two good friends of mine, Alina Fekete and Violeta-Loredana Pascal, I first mentioned my idea of creating an online magazine for women that would be so much better than any other glossy magazine available on the Romanian market, pretending to know what women want and need. A magazine that would speak of career choices, successful women, real world relationships. A magazine for and with real women, the women beyond makeup and stereotypes.

Luckily, the jumped on board right then and there, and we started working on bringing our baby to life. It took us quite a while, the hardest part being to decide on a name. After a few failed tries, Alina Fekete who’s a designer suggested Cenuşă de trandafir, rose ashes. It’s the name of a colour, also called dusty pink. We loved the idea. Simply because complicated color names say women, but mostly because we loved the metaphor: purging through fire all the misconceptions, stereotypes and fake images on women. And then enjoying the real substance that’s left.

Cenuşă de trandafir was oficially launched last Tuesday. Mostly on Twitter and through word of mouth, from us to our friends, to their friends, to their friends. Based on the traffic, the number of comments, the retweets and the private messages, I’d say it was quite a success! And given the right amount of passion and hard work, plus some luck, it’s bound to keep growing.

Unfortunately, only my Romanian readers will be able to enjoy this new magazine. But since it means so much to me, I wanted to share the news with all of you! Good news are meant to be shared, hoping they’ll put a smile on the faces of those you care about

Popularity: 1% [?]

My Yahoo email account is kind enough to let me know when a women’s magazine is launched. As I check my Junk folder each day, I do find out. And I have to tell you all, I always have high hopes. First of all, I should explain what high hopes mean to me. I do not pray for a magazine dedicated to presenting successful women, focused on careers, the current business environment and how it treats women, technology and relevant commercials or advertorials for products I do actually want to buy, book reviews that do not focus on girlie girls and what is trendy only. No, I do not hope for all of that.

What I hope for is a relevant office/business/career section. I pray for a travel section that does not shove general information down my throat, but actually brings me relevant information. Like where to go now? What festivals are in Spain this month! I really don’t care now about what will happen in Spain in January. I also hope for a relevant gadget section. With like…more gadgets! And if you do choose to introduce a laptop to me and you speak of a dual core processor, give me more details! Ok, hard disk with 100 GB…That’s all that matters? What about available RAM, and other features? Does it have a DVD writer? Or only reader? Does it have a card reader? Bluetooth? People, these all matter when choosing a computer.

That is why Essenzza was a big disappointment for me. Office/Travel/Gadgets were the sections I was really interested in. Nothing to see there. Well, I won’t read the beauty/fashion/events etc sections. I did stop at the books section. One out of three actually sounded interesting.

I have also tried the Attitude section. The article I read there describes one certain young lady called Anda. Based on this person’s lifestyle and choices, we draw a conclusion that women are somehow lost, don’t know what they want, who and how much to love etc. And this all because they strive so much to obtain gender equality and other such nonsense…Really? Some of the theses of this article might be worth exploring. But it takes more that one single character to prove them all.

Well, it’s their first issue, maybe they’ll do better next time!

Popularity: 5% [?]