Coloured bulbs – when to use them

The coloured light bulb is hardly a new technology. Indeed many people might remember them from teenage years, as they are perfect for customising your room, being cheap, easy and quickly reversible, so they wouldn’t make your parents scream. While there is a lot more to coloured bulbs than simply popping in a purple one in so you can listen to Pink Floyd, there’s still an undeniable truth in there. Coloured light bulbs are a cheap and convenient way to completely change the look of a space.

Coloured bulbs for all purposes

The classic coloured GLS bulb is still available, in a wide range of colours, not to mention energy-saving and G9 halogen variants. But rather than blitzing the entire room with one colour, like an 80s nightclub, why not use the palette available to you creatively? For a peaceful sanctuary of a room, mix up green and blue bulbs, while a games room or bar would suit bright, vibrant reds and oranges. Interestingly, if you’re planning on a bit of poker, red lighting apparently encourages people to gamble more boldly.

Celebrations

Coloured bulbs are also great for seasonal celebrations – deck out a Valentine’s Day party (or a small girl’s bedroom) with pinks and reds, while greens and reds are great for truly festive feeling Christmas, and blue and green light will create a suitably monstrous Halloween.

Change the context

Don’t just limit yourself to using coloured light bulbs on their own. You can achieve amazing results when combining them with more traditional white lights, to add context and life to a room. This works particularly well when you’re trying to make a dull-looking room really pop. If you have a hallway, bathroom or other area that could best be described as ‘institutional’, replace the central lighting with coloured bulbs, and then use white spotlighting or table-lighting to create smaller, more intimate pools of light.

To break up long expanses of plain coloured wall, use splashes of colour to make the room interesting and break it up a bit, again using brighter spotlighting if you want to create smaller, more cosy feeling areas. At the other end of the scale, make a small room seem larger by shining coloured lights into every corner of the room.

Coloured spotlights

For subtle splashes of colour, spotlight bulbs, available both in halogen GU10 and LED GU10 types for standard spotlight fittings are perfect for adding a delicate flush to surroundings. Spotlights in particular are great for highlighting ornamental items, architectural features and art, as you can pick a shade that will really bring out the colours in whatever you’re illuminating. Best of all, spotlights can be recessed unobtrusively, so you can achieve some startling effects. Mount spotlights in narrow alcoves in an otherwise brightly lit room, for striking red or green features to break up the space. And if you can’t decide what colour you want, just get colour changing bulbs that change colour between red, green and blue.

Festoon finale

Finally, don’t forget those festoon lights. Yes, draping multi-coloured ones all the way round a garden or patio can make it look like a 70s holiday camp, but there are ways to use them strikingly. One of the most effective is to use just a single colour, such as all red or all white. This works particularly well with golf ball or pygmy bulbs, but is effective with coloured GLS bulbs too. Also, don’t just leave them outside.

Stringing up festoons around a living room or dining area can give it a bit of a festival bodega feeling, which works well if you have a basement living area. Don’t feel bound to string them up in the traditional fashion either – a great alternative is to wrap festoon lights around a pillar or beam, something best done with LED bulbs, as they hardly heat up.

If you’re looking for a different type why not take a look at our full range of coloured bulbs.

For more advice, inspiration and news take a look at our Lighting Advice section.

Charles Barnett Managing Director

Charles started Lyco in 1995 with just 4 enthusiastic employees and has grown it considerably over the past 25 years. Charles is also the Managing Director of Lighting Direct and newly acquired Online Lighting. He now has a team of 50 lighting experts working on growing Lyco Group to be the UK leader in lighting for both businesses and homes. Away from the office he is a keen cyclist and is proud to have cycled 1017 miles from Lands End to John O’Groats to raise money for a new residential centre for adults with multiple learning difficulties.