Improving Contemporary Indoor Lighting in the Bathroom

To effectively light any room, there should be three or four types of lighting working together: accent lighting, task lighting, general lighting, and, sometimes, decorative lighting. The bathroom is not an exception to this, especially around vanity mirrors where task lighting is critical. Task lighting can assist in performing basic tasks like applying makeup, dressing a wound, shaving, or putting on manicure. Here are tips in working with contemporary indoor lighting in your bathroom.

Tip #1: It is recommended to get a good task light installed either on both sides of the mirror like the Bell A0 Wall Lamp by Illuminating Experiences, or above the vanity mirror located near the sink. This will prove to be very critical in giving good bathroom task lighting.

Tip #2: For light fixtures installed around your vanity mirror, install incandescent or halogen lights like the Nemo Italianaluce Norma 25 Halogen Wall Lamp by Illuminating Experiences. This will allow you to easily control the brightness of thee fixtures with a dimmer.

Tip #3: Ensure that certain vanity lights that you install will give you more than enough light. One simple technique to make sure that you will always have enough light is to “over-light” the space and then just use dimmers to control the amount of light that you need and want at any given moment. Use a wall sconce like the Nemo Italianaluce Alkaid Incandescent Wall Sconce by Illuminating Experiences and get dimmers.

Tip #4: If you can, use special neodymium light bulbs in your vanity area as they give excellent light that very closely simulates sunlight. A neodymium light bulb is an incandescent light bulb that has a slight bluish tint that is created by a thin coating of neodymium inside the glass envelope. This causes the light bulb to give less yellowish light like a standard incandescent light bulb and be more like the sun.

Tip #5: Do not use recessed downlights to light your face at a mirror because the light coming from it will cause too many shadows on your face. Use them instead on other parts of the bathroom for general lighting but not for task lighting.

Tip #6: Consider having a small lit concave mirror near your main vanity mirror. The concave curvature of the mirror magnifies what you see while the additional light improves the lighting for special tasks like applying makeup or shaving.

Tip #7: An area of the bathroom that is usually overlooked in lighting is the tub, shower or Jacuzzi. Install one or two recessed downlights with special shower trims so you can illuminate each of these areas.