For months before upgrading our bathroom lighting I pretty much did my makeup while wearing sunglasses. Okay, I’m exaggerating slightly but the lighting above our bathroom mirror was atrocious. The previous owners had fitted this single circle light that only illuminated the top half of my face, leaving me looking like a werewolf movie extra.
Not a sexy werewolf, an obviously-doing-her-make-up-by-touch werewolf. It wasn’t until I nearly stabbed my eye with mascara trying to get ready one morning that I decided to finally do something about it. Halfway through attempting to apply mascara in the bathroom mirror whilst simultaneously attempting to get Amara dressed and ready for nursery, I realised I had no idea what I was doing.
It was pitch black in front of me (I blame my hormones) and I had missed half my eyelid with my mascara wand. Again.
After a failed attempt to dislodge the wand from my eyelid (there may have been some tongue clicking involved) I had no choice but to restart my entire makeup routine from scratch.
Something needed to change. Honestly, I’d been putting up the poor lighting for months – anything electrical makes me anxious. Dad was always very vocal about not “messing with electricity” if you weren’t qualified, and believe me I am not qualified.
On top of that we’d already spent a fair amount money on updating our house since moving in and didn’t really want to add to the expenses. However, after Liam witnessed my mascara incident he agreed we had to get something done before I ended up with an actual eyepatch. Researching different lighting options became my new late-night hobby ever since one of those feeding sessions where you can’t sleep but also don’t want to be fully awake.
Every Instagram feed I scrolled through seemed to be filled with perfectly lit bathrooms – while some were beautiful, the majority of vanity lights I saw looked ridiculously expensive. Most of them seemed like they cost more than our monthly mortgage payment! What I eventually realised is you need more than bright lights – you need lights in the right places.
Our old light reflected light onto everywhere EXCEPT where I needed to actually see. Like I could clearly see the top of my head but my eyes and bottom eyelid looked like I was back in the stone-age. No wonder I spent the first half of every morning checking my makeup in car mirrors at the traffic lights!Psoriasis Babies Health Benefits Weight Loss Home Remedies Fat Burner Fitness Tips Anxiety Tips headache Use of CBD Oil CBD Oil For Dogs PreviousNext [ su_image_gallery source=”portfolio” columns=”4″ limit=”12″ sort=”DESC” tax_id=”1733″]I spent hours Googling ‘best vanity lights for makeup’ and searching Pinterest before finally settling on this three-light vanity bar we could mount horizontally above our mirror.
Nothing too over-the-top, just simple sleek lines with frosted glass light shades. Picked one up from Amazon for £85. To save on the cost of hiring an electrician we asked around and discovered Sarah from two streets down knew an electrician who did mate rates, and wouldn’t charge us call-out fees.
He came over one evening while Amara was in bed and installed our new lighting in under an hour. I bought him dinner and we finished off a bottle of wine we had been saving for ‘special occasion’. He was well worth the trade!
I quickly discovered that while the main light bar made a HUGE difference, what really finished off the look were some LED light strips we added behind the bathroom mirror. Liam thought I was nuts when I first mentioned it (it does sound so overly deluxe hotels) but honestly, it’s made all the difference. You can basically barley see the strips themselves but they emit this gorgeous glow around the edge of the mirror that eradicates all those pesky side shadows.
Our bathroom isn’t massive but lighting it correctly has made all the difference to how big it feels. Whoever designed the room definitely didn’t have lighting in mind when they did their floor plan because our bathroom mirror covered almost an entire wall. This new lighting trick made that huge wall of mirror actually work for us though!
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LED light strips were actually super cheap too. Amazon had a set for £25 that came with adhesive strips on the back and even a dimmer switch! Their installation was… interesting.
Lets just say there were some new curse words added to my vocabulary that weekend. You have to fish the wire through the wall to reach the sockets which involved more expletives than was strictly necessary. I feel like Mrs.
Patterson from next door now thinks I’m some undercover CIA agent or something based on all the muttering she hears from our bathroom. The bulbs were the hardest part too. My first pair I purchased looked completely white but they were actually daylight bulbs.
Ended up making my skin look grey. Too warm and you don’t see yourself properly, too cool and it gives everything a weird hue. Meh.
Needless to say, my mornings have never been better. I am no longer waking up to getting ready for work thinking “DON’T FORGET TO CHECK YOUR MAKEUP IN THE CAR MIRRORS”. Since being able to SEE what I’m actually doing when applying makeup, I’ve also upped my skin-care game.
Something I now know for certain is I wasn’t rinsing off my cleanser properly before! I now struggle to leave the bathroom in the mornings without doing at least one extra layer of skin-care I didn’t plan on. The only down-side?
Now I can see every blackhead I’ve ever ignored. Oh well. It also completely changed the dynamic of the room too.
Before updating the bathroom lights it was just somewhere I rushed through in the mornings to get ready.
Now it actually feels nice spending time in there! Those evenings after Amara has gone to bed are always so relaxing now we have this gorgeous backlighting when wandering into the bathroom.
If I were to do it again I would’ve wired the LED light strips onto their own light switch. Currently they’re on the same switch as the main vanity lights so it’s all or nothing which is fine during the day, but means we don’t have the option of just turning on the backlighting at night. In the evenings when you don’t want to be blinded by overhead lighting but still want to see what you’re doing, those light strips are heavenly.
We actually didn’t spend as much money as I thought we would. The light bar was £85, the LED light strips were £25, and I probably spent another £20 on bits and bobs like wire and light junction boxes. Doesn’t sound too bad when you add it up, but obviously we didn’t pay for installation.
If you have to get someone in I imagine you’re still looking at around £50-£100 to have it professionally done. I’ll happily take that every morning to not feel like a hot mess thanks. Would you change your bathroom lighting?
Let me know in the comments below!
