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Light Bulb Fashions.

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We had new lighting put in the bathrooms we had remodeled last year. The lights had these newfangled clear bulbs in them. I imagine they are considered more decorative than regular bulbs. They are nice and interesting, but were a bit of a problem to replace when one burned out last week.

There was no indication on the bulb as to its wattage except some gold writing on the top of the bulb that was completely unreadable. We could discern they were a Sylvania product, though.

We headed to Menards with the burned out bilb as a reference. I was astounded by the varity of light bulb shapes and sizes. When did this happen? I guess I just haven’t been paying attention to lighting trends for the past few years. In fact, I am guilty of not paying attention to much when I buy light bulbs except the wattage, which probably explains the variety of light bulb colors in our house. Some are “soft white”, some are “bright white”, and sometimes it looks pretty odd with white and yellowish bulb colors in the same light.

We encountered a helpful young woman clerk in the lightbulb department who was able, at a quick glance at the burned out bulb, to tell us we needed 40 watt soft white replacements. Now we know. I decided I like bright white bulbs in the other lights in the house, but we’ll stick with these for the bathrooms.

Any decorative or fashion trends that are surprising to you? Are you a bright white or soft white kind of person?

30 thoughts on “Light Bulb Fashions.”

  1. Almost all fashion trends surprise me. The one that’s been popular the last couple of years that YA sports every now and then is the “shirt that’s only tucked in just one place”usually. Even though I know this is a fashion trend, every time I see it on her (or on someone else) I think “oh they didn’t get their shirt pulled out all the way after they went to the bathroom and pulled their pants back up.”

    Bright white.

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  2. I’m sure I would be surprised but I can’t think of any way I would be aware of design or fashion trends. I don’t pursue that information in any form and probably wouldn’t recognize a trend if I encountered it.

    In general I prefer low, warm lighting with whiter, brighter light available for task lighting.

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    1. Now that I think about it, there is one fashion trend I can address:
      Contrary to apparent perception by the wearers, stretch leggings are not universally flattering. There are some examples you can’t unsee, no matter how much you might wish to.

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  3. the led bulb revolution is interesting. costco has had bulb packages on sale where 6 or 8 of them are offered with an instant rebate that makes the whole 6 pack is .99 or 1.99. the most recent adder is a clicker at the bottom that lets you switch from soft white to bright white with 6 clicks from yellow white to blue white. round, floods and one in between.a great deal and rhey last forever. those leds are amazing. i decided not to participate in fashion trends. i do my fashion style and it goes in and out of style. i remember reading about a character in a book years ago where it said he wore a coat snd vest with a homburg hat that were very distinctive but he dressed in a way that made it look as though where he came from everyone dressed that way. every now and again i get a comment on my sports coat or hat and i think of him. once i worried a bit about what people thought of me until i realized they really dont think of me much at all

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  4. Neither, we prefer warm white in our house.

    I’ve stopped being surprised by the stupidity of fashion; every time I think a trend can’t be dumber or uglier they outdo themselves yet again. I am surprised that there are guys still walking around with saggy pants and people are still decorating their houses in gray. Feels like those trends have been dragging on for an eternity…

    –Crow Girl

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  5. Those spiral fluorescent bulbs that appeared for a while between incandescent and led lights were an unfortunate trend. I still have some dead ones. They are considered hazardous waste because of the mercury they contain and are hard to get rid of.
    An increasingly common trend in LED lighting fixtures is that they don’t use bulbs at all. The LEDs are built in, one can choose a preferred color temperature, and when the LEDs begin to fail, you have to replace the fixture. LEDs are supposedly long lived, but I’ve had to replace individual LED bulbs in other fixtures, so I’m wary of those fixtures. However, the trend is in that direction.

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    1. We have a recycling facility here that takes them. I just put things like little button batteries and compact fluorescent bulbs in a box and periodically take them to the hazardous waste place. The service is free.

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  6. I like soft, warm light like the old incandescent bulbs. I bought a few when they were being phased out and I still have them. You can’t use them in some fixtures now.

    I use one Ott lamp for focused, brighter light for knitting or crocheting, and another similar style lamp for reading. My reading lamp has settings you can scroll through with a series of taps. It goes from bright white to warm light in three taps, then saves your setting.

    I’ve always preferred soft, warm, ambient light when at home in the evening. I use a couple strings of holiday lights for my home lighting. You can’t find incandescent strings anymore, so I try to find the warm white ones now.

    The old incandescent bulbs had a much warmer, softer glow than the LED ones have now. I’ve noticed a tiny, eery flicker that they have that is mildly irritating. They look so electric and kind of unreal to me.

    OT: I’m making a placard for the events on Saturday. There’s a smaller rally here in town, for those of us who don’t want to go to St. Paul for the big event. I suspect it will be well-attended!

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  7. I will always prefer wide-leg jeans to skinny jeans. Skinny jeans are not my friend. Otherwise, I don’t pay a lot of attention to fashion anymore. I’m just grateful to have clothes.

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  9. I’ll echo most of the fashion comments that have been made so far. I still don’t get buying intentionally torn clothing, mainly jeans. And the pants hanging below the ass! How do you walk comfortably in those??

    Soft white for general purposes, bright white for task-oriented spaces . . . I guess. But I don’t think I follow that philosophy to the letter in my house.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. One of the rules that we have at our house is that if YA and I are going out together for something, either shopping or a meal, she cannot come with me if she wears jeans with rips in them.

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  10. HI-
    I love me some 5000K daylight lamps! Soft white is OK in the bathroom, but for the rest, Daylight. Technically, that’s the Kelvin color temp. 3000 for soft yellow, 5000 for daylight. And no, they don’t last forever. They don’t always last long at all.
    Mass production and they got cheap.

    In theater we talk a lot about color temp, and “red shift” is a big deal. LED’s are great, but they are not the end all be all. Red shift is that trend of an incandescent fixtures to get more ‘warm’ (red) as it dims. And LED’s don’t do that, and sometimes we want that.
    LED’s for the stage are tough to dim. You have to pay a lot of money to get ones that dim down to 10% or 5% nicely. Without ‘stepping’ down.
    And they ‘pop’ on. I spend a lot of time creating cues with two parts, so the first part is the regular front light coming on and 1.5 seconds later, the back or top LED’s come on. That way it doesn’t grab your eye. It’s too distracting to me if they come on first.

    And the way lighting wavelengths work, I can turn stuff uglier than mud with LED’s. It’s a great party trick!

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  12. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I find I have not one thing to say about lightbulbs. When I go to that department in Menards I feel overwhelmed. There are too many. But I feel overwhelmed in Menards in absolutely every department.

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    1. Though I pay a premium to do my hardware shopping at ACE, I prefer it, because in there I am neither overwhelmed, nor aurally assaulted by that Menard’s Jingle they keep playing about saving big money.

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  13. Last year right after the holidays, I noticed that my neighbors up the street had porch lightbulbs that were flashing between red and green and white. Slowly flashing. I called them up and asked them about them and they told me they got them at the hardware store. So I went to the hardware store and I ordered a set. I put them in the boxes with all the holiday decorations so that I remember that I have them in this coming holiday season.

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  15. I was at a big box store one day and found some fancy specialty light bulbs on clearance. I picked up a few. There was a kind that you switch on, and it stays lit for about ten or fifteen minutes, then automatically shuts off. Another kind has a built-in battery backup, so if your power fails, you’ve got that one light that stays on.

    I like soft white.

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