BEAUTY

What defines beauty? What makes you feel beautiful?

Seeing ourselves as beautiful is an intimate process where we evaluate what we see based on variables that we’ve personally defined. This may include physical variables such as makeup, skin tone, or even our choice in clothing.

So what does this have to do with lighting?

Red lipstick seen under warm white LEDs on the left and cool white on the right. (Photo courtesy of Bridgelux)

YIKES!

Imagine you are in front of a bathroom mirror getting ready for work in the morning. You fix your hair, apply your makeup and are ready to leave the house. You get into your car and casually take a look in the rearview mirror only to be horrified by what you see: cheeks that are too red, eye shadow that is too dark, a streak of foundation running along your cheek, and lipstick that hasn’t been applied evenly.

If we do not look at ourselves within the correct light spectrum, we run the risk of looking unnatural and distorted. However, we often don’t know we’re in the wrong spectrum until we move to a different light. In this case, you strutted out of your bathroom ready to start your day with conviction only to get a shock of what you really looked like once you were outside in the sunlight.  

Light is always changing so we would need to check ourselves under different light sources to account for every possibility that we might encounter on any given day. If you cannot fit multiple light sources in your home to mimic all the environments you are in each day – home, work, restaurants, gym, outdoors– you can use LED lighting with a high CRI and high GAI to mimic sunlight and give you the best, and most natural, lighting solution.  Not only will you be able to see if your makeup has been applied consistently, but you can determine if you chose the right shades that compliment your skin tone.