A dressing table is the one place in the house where the light has to be honest. You sit close, you look straight ahead, and whatever you put on your face at that table has to still look right in daylight an hour later. That is a harder job than it sounds, and it is why a mirror that lights itself beats a lamp standing beside one.
Three failures ruin a dressing table. Light from above drops shadow into the eye sockets and under the cheekbones. Light from one side only makes half the face brighter than the other, so anything blended looks even in the mirror and uneven in the street. And light that is too orange or too green shifts skin tone, so the shade you match indoors is the wrong shade outdoors.
A lit mirror answers all three by putting the source around the glass, at the height of the face, on both sides at once. Nothing about the fitting is clever — it is just the geometry a make-up artist has used for a century.
The Hollywood style rings the frame with visible bulbs. It is the most flattering arrangement because the light comes from a wide arc rather than a point, and it is also the most decorative — the mirror is furniture as much as a fitting. It takes up more wall and, where the lamps are replaceable, it needs a matched set so the colour stays consistent.
Edge-lit mirrors run an LED strip behind the perimeter of the glass, which reads as a soft glow with no visible source. Cleaner, thinner, and easier to live with in a bedroom where a wall of bulbs would be too much at night. A lit band across the top or down two sides sits between the two: more directional than a Hollywood frame, tidier than a lamp.
Measure from the seat, not the floor. Sitting at a dressing table your eyes land somewhere near 110–120 cm above the floor depending on the chair, and the centre of the mirror wants to be close to that. Hang it at standing height and you spend every morning craning.
Width follows the table. A mirror noticeably narrower than the table top looks stranded; one that overhangs it looks top-heavy. Depth matters too — a bedroom dressing table is usually against a wall in a walkway, so a slim panel is kinder to elbows and hips than a deep framed box.
Neutral white in the region of 4000 K is the usual recommendation for make-up, because it sits close enough to daylight that colours do not shift much between the mirror and the front door. Warm white near 3000 K is more comfortable to sit under in the evening and suits a bedroom better, at the cost of pushing reds and pinks slightly.
Colour rendering is the number people skip and then regret. A CRI in the 80s is workable; the higher into the 90s the closer skin, foundation and lipstick read to their true colour. If the mirror is genuinely for make-up rather than for a last check on the way out, this figure deserves more attention than the wattage does.
Where a mirror is dimmable, use it. Full output for applying, low for the evening. Some panels also let you shift between warm and neutral, which is the closest a single mirror gets to covering both jobs.
Dressing-table mirrors come three ways: a plug and flex to a nearby socket, a permanent connection behind the wall, and battery or USB on the smaller freestanding kinds. A flex is the easy retrofit and the one you can move house with. A concealed connection looks better and has to be planned before the wall is finished. Freestanding units need no wiring at all but give up size.
A bedroom is a dry room, so the protection ratings that govern bathroom fittings do not bind here — but if the mirror will live in a bathroom instead, look for an IP-rated model. The bathroom illuminated mirrors page covers that case properly.
For make-up, usually yes — the light comes from a wider arc and wraps the face. For a quiet bedroom, an edge-lit panel is easier to live with.
Around 4000 K if the priority is colour accuracy; around 3000 K if the priority is comfort in the evening. Adjustable models cover both.
Centre the glass on your seated eye line, roughly 110–120 cm off the floor, adjusted for your chair and table.
Not if it plugs in. A concealed permanent connection does.
For the rest of the lit-mirror range, see illuminated mirrors.
