Why I Stopped Using Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs)
I like getting more bang for my buck so CFLs should be perfect for me. The same lumens of a 100w incandescent for 26w of energy should also be a no brainer. So I switched out my incandescents over the past two years; now I’m switching back and beginning to hoard bulbs. Why? Because I can’t stand the color of the light.
As a lifelong amateur photographer I have developed an eye for the color of light and how it illuminates subjects, and I have yet to find a CFL that can bring out warm skin tones the way an incandescent bulb can. Incandescents also bring out the warm tones of wood and even interior walls painted in off white or light browns. They help make a house feel warm and cozy – especially at night.
CFLs on the other hand inevitably give off a light green that makes most people look sick. The light clashes with warm colored rugs, walls and woods giving them what I can best describe as a plastic appearance. It gives any home that uses them a cold, sterile feel – not homey or cozy at all.
If CFLs matched the light color of incandescents 100% I wouldn’t mind them. But they don’t, and it doesn’t help that I feel pressured by the government and enviro-nuts to use them.
If I can’t feel comfortable in my own home, where can I?
Chad:
Well, in the future remember you’re buying “warming bulbs” not light bulbs, because they’ll be illegal. I use those blue tinted bulbs in most places where I need to see well, but a standard yellow incandescent is great for normal places.
There are CFLs that supposedly emulate incandescent, but they apparently don’t work well at all.
4 January 2011, 12:21 pm