Three quarters of women say that they don’t have the ideal lighting in which to apply their makeup, according to new research by online lighting retailer Lighting Direct. But for less than the price of an average mascara, most people could give themselves a better chance of getting that much sought after flawless finish.

Kathryn Middleton from Lighting Direct said:
“Daylight bulbs will show up all of your imperfections; in terms of applying makeup, this is exactly what you need. Get your foundation right in this light and it is guaranteed to look absolutely flawless everywhere else. With the clocks about to change, more people are likely to be applying products in less than ideal light so it’s definitely worth thinking about getting the right set up at this time of year.”

A bright idea

The solution is to make sure that your light fitting has a daylight bulb installed. When shopping for daylight bulbs, you need to look for a three digit reference number on the packaging beginning either 85, 86, 95 or 96 - this will ensure that it falls into the category of ‘daylight bulb’ and will emit a fairly neutral, blue-ish light that will give you the best indication of true colour. Alternatively, when shopping online, make sure the ‘colour rendering’ (CRI) is 80 or above, and the colour is 5000k or higher. We are all more accustomed to warm, yelllower-toned lighting, but this does not give the best results for makeup application. Very warm white lighting can be a bit like looking through a soft-focus camera lens and won’t help you with the finer details of your makeup application - for example, determining whether you’ve blended your foundation successfully or whether your summer lipstick now looks equally good without that suntan.

As if buying bulbs isn’t complicated enough, the other factor to consider is the lumens - ideally, a bulb of around 1200lm will give you the brightness you need in order to be see the detail when applying your makeup. Much less than that and you’ll be back behind that soft-focus camera lens again.

So in short, look for:

- A three digit reference number on the packaging beginning either 85, 86, 95 or 96
- Colour rendering (CRI) is 80 or above
- Colour is 5000k or higher
- Brightness is 1200lm+

Directional lighting

Of those women surveyed, nearly nine out of ten said that getting their makeup right is important to them and over three quarters said that they would like a better lighting solution for the rooms in which they apply their makeup. Therefore, as well as investing in daylight bulbs, it’s also worth paying some attention to the direction of your light source: side to side (or cross illumination) lighting is much more effective than up or down lighting, which can create more of a Halloween effect! Ideally, you should position your light sources each side of a mirror at eye height to ensure that the light diffuses evenly across your face.

Kathryn Middleton continued:

“We’ve all looked in the mirror half way through the day only to see mascara under our eyes or streaks of foundation across our forehead and wondered why nobody thought to tell us. Spending as little as five to ten pounds on a daylight bulb will minimise these makeup issues and leave you feeling much more confident - and may even speed up your morning routine and prevent product wastage.”

Other facts from Lighting Direct’s makeup survey:

- 71% check their makeup in another room or mirror to ensure that they’ve achieved a perfect result. 12% get someone else to check it for them - be that a partner, offspring or colleague.
- Younger makeup wearers are more likely to take a selfie to ensure that their makeup was as they intended; however, this trend was not evident in makeup wearers over the age of 45.
- Bedrooms are the most popular rooms in the home in which to apply makeup (45%), closely followed by bathrooms at 42%.
- Foundation ‘fails’ were the most common of all beauty disasters - either being too orange, applying too much or not blending the product sufficiently - and all due to being applied in rooms with poor lighting.


- Ends -

Lighting Direct survey undertaken amongst 488 people during March 2017.

Press contact:
Matt Batterham
Browser Media
0207 099 0945
matt.batterham@browsermedia.co.uk

Notes to editors:

Lighting Direct was founded in June 2000 and very quickly became regarded as a key online lighting supplier, regularly going toe to toe with high street entities and providing a better range, great value and good service. Having gradually increased its customer base and standing over a decade of supplying lighting and light fittings across the UK, Lighting Direct was purchased in late 2010 by award winning B2B lighting specialists Lyco Group. For more information, visit www.lighting-direct.co.uk