Bathroom Mirrors

What makes a mirror a bathroom mirror

Any mirror will hang in a bathroom. The ones that last are made for it. What separates them is how the glass is sealed at its edges, whether the backing resists moisture, and whether any electrical part carries a rating for a damp room. A decorative mirror moved in from a bedroom will often black-spot around the rim within a couple of years, as moisture creeps under the silvering.

So the useful question is not how a mirror looks but where the maker intended it to go. We list that plainly on each product page, alongside the fixings supplied and whether anything needs assembling before it goes up.

LED and illuminated bathroom mirrors

A lit mirror does two jobs at once, which is why it suits a small bathroom where there is no room for a separate fitting. Most of ours use an indirect LED set behind the glass, so the light washes the wall and returns as a soft glow rather than glaring back at you. American readers will see these called lighted mirrors; the product is the same.

The LED is integrated, so there is no lamp to buy and none to replace. Look at the colour temperature if the light matters to you: warmer light around 2700K to 3000K reads softer and flatters skin tones, while cooler light is easier for close work such as shaving or make-up. Some designs are fed by a cord and simply plug in, which avoids an electrician.

Demisters, and why glass fogs

Glass fogs because it is colder than the air around it, so moisture condenses on the surface. A demister is a thin heated pad bonded to the back of the mirror that keeps the glass a degree or two above room temperature, so the fog never forms. It is the single feature people most often wish they had bought. In the United States the same thing is sold as an anti-fog mirror.

A demister needs a permanent supply and usually runs with the light, so it is worth deciding before the electrics are done rather than after. Where a mirror has one we say so on its page.

IP ratings and bathroom zones

UK bathrooms are divided into zones by how likely they are to get wet, and any electrical product needs an ingress rating suited to its zone. Zone 1 covers the area above a bath or inside a shower, Zone 2 extends roughly 600mm beyond it, and the space outside that is outside the zones. An IP44 rating means protection against splashing from any direction, which is what most lit bathroom mirrors carry.

An unlit mirror has no electrical part and therefore no IP rating, which is not a gap. Read the rating on lit designs, and if a mirror is going directly above a bath or into a shower enclosure, have an electrician confirm the zone before fitting.

Shapes, sizes and where they work

Round mirrors soften a room full of straight lines, which is most bathrooms, and they sit comfortably above a single basin. Rectangular designs give more reflective surface for the same wall and suit a double basin or a narrow wall beside a door. A full-length mirror earns its place in a larger bathroom or a wet room where there is space to stand back from it.

Measure the wall before the mirror. Leave room above a basin for taps and a splashback, and remember that a deeper frame projects further into a space people walk through. Where a design comes in more than one size we list each separately with its own dimensions.

Fitting, cleaning and care

Most of these hang on two screws or hooks with wall plugs, supplied in the box. Fix into something solid rather than plasterboard alone: glass is heavier than it looks and a mirror of any size wants a fixing you would trust with a shelf of books. Some heavier and lit designs need assembling before they go up, and we say which.

Clean with a soft cloth and a little glass cleaner sprayed onto the cloth rather than onto the mirror, so nothing runs into the edges or behind the frame. Avoid anything abrasive, and wipe the rim dry after a shower. That habit alone does more to prevent black-spotting than any coating.

A mirror or a mirror cabinet

These are two different products and it is worth being clear which you are looking for. Everything on this page is a mirror: a reflective panel that hangs flat on the wall. A mirror cabinet, sometimes called a shaving cabinet, is a storage unit whose door happens to be mirrored, and it projects much further from the wall.

We stock mirrors rather than cabinets, so if storage is what you need, this is not the page for it. If you want a mirror and separate light, our bathroom mirror lights sit above or beside a mirror and are listed with the lighting.