Tips for Maximizing Bathroom and Vanity Lighting

Modern bathrooms are funny spaces nowadays. Compared to previous generations, bathrooms have become far more multi-functional. Long gone are the days when the bathroom was a place to clean yourself in the morning or evening. 

Current attitudes to bathrooms have changed quite a lot by any metric, with modern bathrooms being seen as something more like a bit of retreat. Most modern marketing campaigns for bathrooms would have you believe that these rooms are miniature spas designed to allow you to kick back and relax. 

To a degree, those marketing campaigns are correct. With just a little bit of work and time, most bathrooms can be made into the welcoming spaces we always hope they can be. 

However, if there’s one aspect of the bathroom that always seems to get forgotten about, it’s the lighting. Thankfully, as a business that’s primarily concerned with bringing you great lighting ideas, we’re here to give you some great tips to maximize your bathroom and make it the most relaxing spot it can be. 

It’s The Kind of Light You Use

Let’s get the big orange elephant in the room out of the way first. 

The reality of bathroom lighting is that the best lighting for the bathroom is, quite simply, daylight. The reason for this is pretty simple – sunlight provides the best lighting for seeing colors as they really are. So stuff like our own faces, hair clothes, and makeup all show up exactly as the color they’re supposed to. This sort of thing is pretty essential for doing your own makeup or skincare routine and makes interacting with your vanity mirror much less of a guessing game in the process. 

Of course, it’s also super important for other activities such as shaving body hair, where having the best lighting available is pretty crucial for obvious reasons. 

So, in short, maximizing your bathroom to allow as much natural light as possible to come is going to make your whole bathroom experience much smoother and enjoyable from the get-go. 

Big Bright Bulbs

But what about during times when the sun is not strictly available? Like, say, during the night? Well, we have an answer to that too – buy bulbs for your lights that can mimic daylight as much as possible. 

For that, you want a light that’s going to be able to mimic the color temperature of daylight. If you’re unfamiliar with what “color temperature” actually is, keep reading because we’re about to explain it. 

Color temperature simply refers to the measurable temperature of light when it is a specific color. The higher the temperature, the more bright and blue the color of the light. Conversely, the lower the temperature, the less bright and orange the light will be. It’s admittedly slightly confusing because that means that “warmer” lights are also lower in temperature while “colder” lights are higher in temperature, but you’ll get the hang of it. 

In the case of the sun and daylight, during peak hours, the sunlight is recorded at between 4800 kelvins (K) and 6000K. So you want a bulb that’s going to be able to mimic that as much as possible. LED bulbs, such as the ones provided by Steel Lighting Co., are capable of reaching around 2700K to 3000K and so make the best alternative to natural daylight. 

Flank That Mirror

Ambient lighting in the bathroom is pretty critical, and making sure you’ve got enough to go around is going to be pretty important. However, this isn’t going to be all that different from the type of ambient lighting you need for most rooms. However, if there’s one spot in your bathroom that’s going to need some extra touches to make it the best it can be, it’s going to be wherever your vanity mirror is. 

The vanity mirror is arguably the most essential part of the bathroom when making sure you’ve got good lighting. This comes down to the simple fact that vanity mirrors are the most dependent on you being able to see as well as possible.  

Thankfully, the solution to this is straightforward and mostly comes down to positioning. Ideally, the best place to situate your lights for your vanity mirror of choice is going to be either right above or, ideally, on either side of the panel. 

This provides the immediate benefit of allowing you to have the most light possible situated as close as possible to your mirror while also allowing the least amount of shadows to form simultaneously. This creates a space around your vanity mirror that’s pleasing to the eye and is ideal for seeing everything as clearly as possible. 

Wall-mounted lights are ideal for this sort of task-orientated lighting, with our steel lights being outstanding options. For those that like lights with a small profile, our Hawthorne wall-mounted light is a fantastic option, while our Westchester and Venice options are also hugely popular. 

You can even take this a step further and enhance each of our lights style with a choice between straight-arm or gooseneck styles. 

Bathrooms Have Layers

Layering your lighting is a tried and true tactic for making the most of the lighting options available to any room. This is no different for the bathroom, and having a variety of options to layer your light sources is crucial to maximizing your bathroom experience. 

Given that so much of the bathroom experience can be about creating a certain mood, such as having a calm and relaxing atmosphere for a bath or morning routine, having a lighting setup that can remain flexible is vital. 

Creating a selection of different lights catering to ambient and decorative lighting styles can be a massive upgrade to your bathroom lighting. Creating a mix and match between ceiling-mounted and wall-mounted options is the easiest way to achieve this and helps create a fantastic atmosphere for every occasion. 

If you’d like to know more about how steel lighting can improve your bathroom experience, then contact our team at Steel Lighting Co., our friendly group of experts would be more than happy to give some advice and recommendations on what kind of steel barn light can best suit your needs.