Elibbren Farmhouse-Style Bathroom Vanity Lighting, 3-Light

Vanity lights, the lights above the mirror in your bathroom, are designed to illuminate your face when you’re looking into the mirror, and they are an integral part of most modern bathrooms. As with most lighting fixtures, vanity lights can add an architectural design element that helps you complete the look of your bathroom decor. This combination of function and form makes vanity lighting an important item that you’ll want to consider carefully before buying.

When you’re taking a bathroom break to check for any spinach that might be showing in your teeth, you don’t want to have to squint to figure out what’s going on in the mirror. A vanity light should spread out a lot of light that will bounce directly off your face and off the mirror and reflect back to you. This combination makes your face light up from all angles, removing dark shadows that your cheeks or nose might cause. A good vanity light will be spread out wide, sometimes with three separate lights, which will be sure to cover a large area with illumination for when you need it. 

Bathroom designs can vary wildly when it comes to ceiling height as well. Some vanity lighting pendants will hang low with more of a chandelier-style design. But if you’re on the taller side and want to avoid hitting your head on a low-hanging lighting fixture, there are vanity lights that don’t hang down as far. Look for a light that doesn’t dip down much lower than the base where it attaches to the wall. They typically use a fun design element that gives a look of depth and design, but they don’t actually lower the lights down too far. Having to dodge and duck when you’re dipping your head down every time you brush your teeth will become quite a tedious task if you fall into the taller category.

Having bright light bulbs shining directly into your eyes as you put on your makeup is going to make you squint, which isn’t the look you want when you’re putting on your face. Most fixtures will be set to avoid this issue by having covers to dim the light before it comes to you. Other designs use the popular and energy-efficient Edison-style light bulbs that emit a warm and comforting light.

Not all vanities are built equally. If you have a vanity mirror that is freestanding or you don’t have the ability to hardwire a full lighting fixture into your wall, you can find lights that will line the edges of your mirror to encapsulate your face in bright lighting from all directions. Some kids don’t come with a mirror though, as they are simply a string of LED lights designed to line the edge of your existing mirror. This provides great lighting from all angles too, eliminating unwanted shadows and allowing you to see yourself quite well.

After you have sorted out which of these features and elements you are leaning toward, the rest is finding a lighting fixture that will look good in your space and have the quality to last a long time. Maintenance is an ongoing issue with any light, so look at how many bulbs it has and know that they will likely need changing over time if they’re not LED bulbs. LED bulbs will give the best return on investment as they are so energy-efficient that they make negligible impacts on your energy bill, and as an added benefit, they will last decades before needing replacement. The materials of the lamp hardware can vary as well, so find metal fixtures that look higher in quality to ensure they last as long as you need them to.

• When working on electrical fixtures, you should always respect electricity and the potential to be harmed by it. If you are a DIY advocate and plan to wire one of these vanity lights up to replace an outdated one, make sure you turn off the power at the breaker box and test that the wires you are working on are not energized. Otherwise, you can call an electrician, and they can have the light installed in a jiffy.
• Vanity lights are generally mounted in the center of the mirror so they can spread light evenly across. Today, we see a lot of double sinks in bathrooms, which could mean you want a really long vanity light or possibly two separate lighting units.
• Be sure to think about the dimensions and mark it out with painters tape on the wall if you can’t visualize how much space the fixtures will take. If you are entirely lit from one side, the far side of your face will constantly be darker and shadowed, adding inconvenience and frustration every time you use the mirror.