If you suffer from low light levels in your bathroom, help is at hand in the form of illuminated bathroom mirrors; all that leaning over the wash basin and squinting as you try to get your mascara in the right place can now be relegated to the past.

In today’s doll-sized houses with squeezed in bathrooms, not everybody has the benefit of natural light flooding into the bathroom, particularly when it comes to en suites. And even if you are lucky enough to have an enormous bathroom with dual aspect windows, you still need to use some sort of lighting illuminate your beauty at night. You don’t need us to tell you that the central ceiling light just isn’t up the job. At the very best this type of light casts unflattering shadows, at the very worst it can make you look as if you’ve died but not lay down yet.

All that functionality aside, illuminated mirrors also provide very relaxing light levels that are ideal for a long relaxing soak in the bath. Like candle light but without the flames.

Choose your lamps wisely and you will remove the perennial problem of steamed up mirrors too – halogen lamps give out enough heat to warm the glass thereby preventing condensation! The halogen light spectrum is also very close to that of natural daylight (although slightly warmer), so your skin tone will look good by this light too. The only downside of tungsten halogen lamps is that they can be quite expensive to run and have a useful life of only 2,000 hours.

So, if costs and energy usage are more important to you than looking pink and rosy, you should perhaps consider fluorescent illuminated mirrors. Modern fluorescent lamps are far removed from their ancestors, gone is the popping and flickering of old. They have a useful life of around 10,000 hours, after which time you’ll need to replace them as the light quality deteriorates. So, in effect, they last five times as long as halogen bulbs.

Because of the way they are made – the lights are placed behind a sheet of mirrored glass that has had some of the silvering removed by sandblasting – illuminated mirrors are easy to clean too. The front of the mirror remains smooth and there are no tiny inaccessible gaps where dust and soap scum can build up.

For those of us whose eyesight isn’t what it once was, you can even get illuminated magnifying shaving mirrors! Whilst it’s impractical to produce large magnifying mirrors due to the processes involved, it’s relatively easy to produce smaller mirrors. And that means no more wearing your mascara as eyeliner because you couldn’t quite see where it was going.

All illuminated mirrors tend to be good-looking, but some are far more than that. Designers have used LED lamps to create some stunning effects, from infinite pinpricks of light to Hollywood glamour.

On reflection, an illuminated bathroom mirror is probably just what you need.

Want to find out more about illuminated mirrors, then visit Duncan Munday’s site on how to choose the best illuminated bathroom mirror for your bathroom including great advice in the regularly updated blog.