Salon lighting...What's yours like?

[JOM]

Hi people,

Just want to find out your experiances and ideas on general lighting

We have GU10 50w spots in the ceiling

We need more general lighting for the hair side of the salon, but I'm reluctant to throw up more 50w halogens as they are a very direct light and we need general... I could put more in so we have enough but before I do I would like to hear what you guys have.

My thoughts...
I am thinking floresent might be a bit too harsh - we had strip lights where I used to work and I didn't like them.
We could use flush fitting ceiling lights with normal bulbs but they don't look very salon'y'... still an option though.

All input welcome - thx

 

[Ruth Mills]

Not sure how they would work in a salon setting, but I'm a big fan of LED lighting; my favourite store for buying it from being Ultra Bright Leds and Led products at bargain prices with super fast delivery - by Ultra Leds U.K

Although a fair bit more expensive to purchase in the first instance, they use a lot less electricity than standard halogen bulbs; I used to run 3 x 50W Halogen GU50 bulbs in my computer room, and now run 3 x 4W LED GU50 bulbs instead (so have gone from 150W down to 12W)! And they're meant to last a lot longer than standard bulbs too - probably 40 or 50 times longer than a halogen bulb!

Unlike the cheaper LED bulbs, e.g. the "Alpha-Innovations" ones that you can buy in B&Q, the more expensive bulbs from the UltraLEDs website give out a lot more light, which is spread over a wider area too. For more diffuse lighting, they even sell GU50 LED bulbs with a 120 degree beam angle, which will spread the light over a much wider area than the standard GU10 spot bulbs, which have around a 35 degree beam angle usually.

Be aware of the different "colour temperatures" available though; the bulbs normally come in "cool white" or "warm white" variants. Although the cool white bulbs give out more light than the corresponding warm white versions, the light has quite a bluish tinge to it, whereas the warm white bulbs have a yellowish tinge to the light, similar to a standard halogen. So I'd definitely recommend the warm white bulbs for a salon setting.

Continuing down the "eco" lighting route, Varilight make an excellent range of dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs, VARILIGHT Dimmable CFL Energy Saving Light Bulbs - they're rated at 20 watts, so give out the equivalent amount of light to a 100W bulb at full brightness, but will dim down to as low as 2% of full brightness. They do two sorts of bulbs - one that will work with a dimmer, and one that you can use with a standard light switch (with the latter, you can set the dimming level by switching the bulb on and off and on again within a second or so). So if you wanted the ability to dim the light but also save energy, then these would be a good option.

 

[JOM]

Great suggestions!!!
thanks for the reply

We considered the LED's but if I was going down the GU10 route, we need 18 units... so at £8.63 each that would be £156 just for the bulbs - which is a lot but if it solved the prob all gravey...
...only problem is if I bought all those and still wasn't right... be a lot of money down the drain.

Tonight we had a look at some units in Ikea... IKEA | Search result
The round "triples" above the styling stations (1 light angled down, 1 towards the wall/mirror and 1 and 1 towards the middle of the room)
Maybe a couple if "track" ones in the middle of the room.
They seem to hit a middle ground between direct light and general spread.
These can be fitted with E27 (screw in) energy bulbs.
My only concern is they look a bit big or not as sleek as our reassessed GU10 halogens.

I'd apprecite some more opinions or experiances of what works that you have got in and what doesn't please!!!

 

[rheanna]

Found this old thread on search and I guess my query is the same what do you all use? I have 8 recessed spotlights on dimmer in ceiling which were put in when garage was originally converted and are not really fit for purpose now! I need more light for make - up and the right kind (not sure what that is) also need diffused light for relaxing treatments and good light for waxing and tanning!

I've thought of adding 2 extra large lights in between the spots for good lighting and use spots with different bulbs in for relaxation - had an electrician in but he wanted £845 so am trying to research options hope someone can help

Gail

 

[Ruth Mills]

Found this old thread on search and I guess my query is the same what do you all use? I have 8 recessed spotlights on dimmer in ceiling which were put in when garage was originally converted and are not really fit for purpose now! I need more light for make - up and the right kind (not sure what that is) also need diffused light for relaxing treatments and good light for waxing and tanning!

I've thought of adding 2 extra large lights in between the spots for good lighting and use spots with different bulbs in for relaxation - had an electrician in but he wanted £845 so am trying to research options hope someone can help

Gail

Ouch, that sounds expensive! For make-up, Ikea do some really nice lights that fit around a mirror; there's a pic in my album of the lights and the mirror in our front bedroom; I think I paid less than £100 for the light fittings, low energy bulbs and the mirror; I did fit it myself though, so that kept the cost down, rather than having to pay a sparky lol... although you probably need to use a sparky for Health & Safety regulations as it will be for business use in your case...

 

[rheanna]

Thanks Ruth, i dont really want to add lights to mirrors though more ceiling light options - might repost this though on another thread as not getting much notice on chit chat!

 

[danielo]

One of my friends recently got some lights for their salon and I believe they got them from this place, if might be worth checking them out:

LED Lighting

 

[fozzyo]

In my room I have most of it lit by LED strips that I can change the colours of. You can see some examples of it on my website. In the rest of the house we are changing every bulb over to LED ones ... GU10 replaced with LED equivilents, and standard bulbs changed too. All from LED Light Bulbs (GU10, MR16, E27, E14, G4, Dimmable) LED Lights - SimplyLED

Don't forget with LED bulbs you are reducing your electricity bill massively and don't need to replace the bulbs. 8 bulbs is 400W of power, the LED equivilent is just 32W!!

Be wary of using LED lights on dimmers! You will get a noticeable strobe / flicker on them - even with dimmers that say LED compatible.

Mat

 

[Ruth Mills]

In my room I have most of it lit by LED strips that I can change the colours of. You can see some examples of it on my website. In the rest of the house we are changing every bulb over to LED ones ... GU10 replaced with LED equivilents, and standard bulbs changed too. All from LED Light Bulbs (GU10, MR16, E27, E14, G4, Dimmable) LED Lights - SimplyLED

Don't forget with LED bulbs you are reducing your electricity bill massively and don't need to replace the bulbs. 8 bulbs is 400W of power, the LED equivilent is just 32W!!

Be wary of using LED lights on dimmers! You will get a noticeable strobe / flicker on them - even with dimmers that say LED compatible.

Mat

That looks like a really good website! We are a huge fan of LED lights here; we've got them on our landing and in Sonia's downstairs bathroom, as well as in the computer room.

Shame about the dimmable lights being so flickery; am guessing they haven't paid as much attention to the control circuitry as they should have done; LEDs strobing at 50Hz will almost certainly look flickery though; surely there should be some sort of circuit that measures the pulse width ratio at 50Hz (from the dimmer switch) and uses this to drive a PWM circuit operating at a much higher frequency?

 

[Ruth Mills]

In my room I have most of it lit by LED strips that I can change the colours of. You can see some examples of it on my website. In the rest of the house we are changing every bulb over to LED ones ... GU10 replaced with LED equivilents, and standard bulbs changed too. All from LED Light Bulbs (GU10, MR16, E27, E14, G4, Dimmable) LED Lights - SimplyLED

Don't forget with LED bulbs you are reducing your electricity bill massively and don't need to replace the bulbs. 8 bulbs is 400W of power, the LED equivilent is just 32W!!

Be wary of using LED lights on dimmers! You will get a noticeable strobe / flicker on them - even with dimmers that say LED compatible.

Mat

In terms of dimmable low energy lighting, we really like the Varilight dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs though... Dimmable Energy Saving Lamps - we have these in our lounge - there's no noticeable flicker or strobing with these...