Effective dressing room mirror lighting aims to illuminate your face evenly, eliminating harsh shadows that can distort appearance when applying makeup or styling hair.
Based on expert advice, achieving optimal lighting involves strategic placement of light sources relative to the mirror and your position. The core principle is to surround your face with light from the front.
Key Lighting Principles
According to guidance on selecting lighting for makeup mirrors:
- Position lights directly before you: This ensures that light falls equally across your face, preventing the formation of shadows that can hide details or create unevenness. Lights placed around the mirror's perimeter or directly facing you achieve this effect.
- Place wall-mounted lights on either side of your mirror: Flanking the mirror with lights helps radiate illumination evenly, providing balanced light distribution from both sides of your face.
Practical Lighting Setups
Combining these principles leads to common and effective methods for lighting a dressing room mirror:
- Surround Lighting: Installing lights (like LED strips or vanity bulbs) around the entire perimeter of the mirror. This places light directly in front of you from multiple angles, fulfilling the "directly before you" principle for even, shadow-free illumination.
- Side Sconces: Placing wall-mounted light fixtures (sconces) on the wall, one on each side of the mirror, typically at eye level. This method directly implements the "on either side" principle, ensuring even light radiation across the face.
- Combined Approach: Sometimes, a combination of top-mounted or side lights with supplementary front lighting (like a light-up mirror itself) can be used, though frontal and side placement are emphasized for best results.
By placing lights so they originate from the front or sides of your face, rather than solely from above (which casts shadows under the eyes and nose) or from behind (which silhouettes you), you create the ideal conditions for tasks requiring clear, accurate reflection.
Reference Source: Lights2go Blog - Be made up with your dressing table lighting: how to choose lighting for doing your makeup
