COLORED LIGHT EFFECTS

RED light destroys color. It converts pale and warm colors into a uniform red hue and makes dark colors look black. Even red is distorted under red light. Yellow-reds turn into blue-reds; dark reds turn into brown.

PINK light is more flattering and gives a sensation of warming up color except greens and blues which it causes to turn grayish. Pink light has some very negative side effects including endocrine suppression and aggression,so your best bet is to avoid. (Read our blog on the Perils of Pink.)

YELLOW light makes most colors appear more orange, while orange looks yellower. Light blues turn grayish violet. Dark blues look brown. Greens become grayish and blue-greens look greener. A yellowish peach light can be flattering to skin tones as it picks up the tones that flatter cosmetics.

ORANGE and dark amber lights redden yellows, intensify reds and oranges and make greens, blues and violets look grayish brown.

GREEN light grays all colors except green, which it intensifies.  Pale green light is very tricky to use. It can enhance foliage but make the complexion look ghastly.

BLUE light can turn red into maroon and turn yellow into green. Dark blue light will gray everything except greens, blues and violets which it intensifies. Pale blue light looks cold and gives a ghostly glow to skin tones.

VIOLET light makes yellows look orange and makes oranges look redder.

Copyrighted, Cherie and Kenneth Fehrman, 2010 (Excerpted from Color: The Secret Influence, Prentice Hall)

Health Studies on the Effects of Fluorescent Lighting

As early as 1974, Dr. Richard Wurtman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began to identify negative health effects associated with fluorescent lighting including migraines, disrupted sexual development, and obesity, because the distorted spectrum of fluorescent light acts to suppress melatonin and disrupt circadian rhythms of the human body. Graphs show the different spectral distributions of incandescent, fluorescent and Solux lighting in relation to natural daylight. If you take a moment to look at them you will see clearly how radically fluorescent lighting differs from daylight.

Fluorescent vs Daylight

Later published studies indicate further negative health effects including increases in breast cancer rates, although this list barely scratches the surface of studies reporting negative health effects:

•Fluorescent lighting enhances tumor formation (Wiskemann A., Sturm, E., Klehr, N.W.,
1986 Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology)
•Fluorescent lighting contributes to agoraphobia (Hazell, J., Wilkins. A.J., Psychology & Medicine, 1990
•Increase in breast cancer rates among night workers exposed to fluorescent light
(O’Leary, et al American Journal of Epidemiology, 2006)
(Note: it is currently postulated that the distorted spectral distribution of fluorescent light disrupts the body’s circadian rhythms through melatonin suppression which causes hormonal shifts resulting in increases in breast cancer. )
•Circadian disruption caused by fluorescent light in the built environment contributes to breast cancer and endocrine disruption (Stevens, & Rea, Cancer Causes and Control, 2001)
•Fluorescent lighting caused increased stress in humans. (Basso, M.R. Jr., Journal of Neuroscience, 2001)

Natural daylight provides the only true full spectrum lighting. Incandescent light is closer in spectral distribution to natural daylight; fluorescent light is far different which accounts for its negative effects on the human body. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of well documented scientific photobiological studies indicating the negative effects of fluorescent lighting.

Legislation is tending toward favoring fluorescent lighting because of its energy saving properties, however, consumers need to be concerned and informed about th health issues linked to fluorescent lighting. It is essential for designers to know the facts before they specify lighting for their clients. While we must all find ways to conserve energy, we should not rush to judgment and make matters worse by adopting technologies whose ramifications are not fully understood. We urge you to please investigate the very real, and very negative effects of fluorescent lighting and if you are as concerned as we are, to contact your legislative representatives.

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Novel lighting sources with far different spectral distributions than natural daylight should only be adopted after careful study of their effects. Lighting companies such as Solux provide good energy saving alternatives to incandescent without the harmful effects of fluorescent lighting. (We have no affiliation with Solux but we do use their products in our own home. For further information about Solux visit www.solux.net.

Copyrighted, Cherie and Kenneth Fehrman 2007