Warm white vs cool white vs daylight: which bulb colour for each room

Warm white and soft white name the same band of light: a soft, slightly yellow white of about 2700–3000K that suits living rooms, bedrooms and most of a home. Cool white, at around 4000K, is crisper and belongs where you work, such as a kitchen bench or counter, a bathroom mirror or a desk. Daylight bulbs run from 5000K to 6500K and look blue-white, so they suit a garage or workshop far better than a room you relax in. Brands and countries use these names differently, which is why the Kelvin number on the box matters more than the words.

The names on the box, matched to Kelvin

Australian, New Zealand and UK shelves mostly say warm white, cool white and daylight. In the US and Canada the same choice is usually printed as soft white, bright white and daylight. None of these names is fixed: ENERGY STAR in the US puts cool white at 3500–4100K, and the UK's Energy Saving Trust at 4000–4500K. Read every name as a band, and use the table to place it.

For the finer steps inside those bands, such as 2700K against 3000K, our LED colour temperature guide sets them side by side.

Warm white vs cool white

The two differ in colour, not in strength: bulbs rated at the same lumens give out the same amount of light, whatever the label. Warm white keeps a little yellow in it, which is kind to skin and wood and lets a room settle in the evening. Cool white takes that yellow out and reads clean and alert. In practice that means warm white where you sit, eat and sleep, and cool white over the surfaces where you chop, shave, sort laundry or work at a screen. Put a cool bulb in a lounge and it starts to feel like an office.

Cool white vs daylight

Both read as white, but daylight goes much further towards blue. Cool white sits near 4000K. Daylight starts around 5000K and runs to 6500K, a flat, bright white that shows every speck on a workbench and makes a living room feel cold. Most mix-ups happen at the edge between them, because some makers use the name cool white for 6000K: one of our own linear pendants calls its 6000K setting cool white. If the box says 5000K or more, expect daylight, whatever the name.

Soft white vs daylight, and where bright white fits

Soft white is the warm 2700–3000K band, which ENERGY STAR calls the standard colour of incandescent bulbs; daylight is 5000–6500K. Bright white is the loosest of the three: our Kelvin guide places it at 3500K, and ENERGY STAR groups it with cool white between 3500K and 4100K. So soft white goes in the rooms you live in, bright white suits a kitchen that is also the dining room, and daylight stays in the garage or workshop.

Which colour for each room

• Living and dining rooms: warm white at the 2700K end, for soft evening light over the sofa and the table.
• Bedrooms: warm white at 2700K in every light, bedside included; our bedroom lighting ideas explain why. Of the 80 bedroom wall lights we sell that list a colour temperature with their installation details, 75 say warm white or warm light and 4 let you choose.
• Kitchens: warm or soft white around 3000K for the room, including any pendants over the island, with cool white only in a strip under the wall cabinets, lighting the bench.
• Bathrooms: about 3000K in wall lights for the bathroom. If you shave or do make-up at the mirror and want crisper light, take the whole room to about 4000K rather than mixing the two.
• Hallways and entries: warm white, 2700–3000K.
• Home office: cool white, about 4000K, at the desk while you work, with a warm lamp for the evening.
• Laundry and garage: cool white, or daylight at a bench where you do close work.
• Outside: warm white. DarkSky International, which campaigns against light pollution, asks for warmer-colour light outdoors, with as little blue as the job allows.

One colour per space, and lights that switch

Lights you can see together should share a colour. Picture an open-plan kitchen, dining and living room: pick one warm white for every ceiling light, pendant and lamp in it, 3000K if cooking is the main job and 2700K if the space is mostly for sitting. Cool white then goes only into the strip under the wall cabinets, where your eye is on the lit worktop rather than on the light itself.

If you can't decide, choose a light that changes colour. The Nordic KUU pendant steps between warm, neutral and cool white from an ordinary wall switch. The U-shaped linear LED pendant switches between 3000K, 4000K and 6000K by remote, so it can match whatever the rest of the kitchen uses. In Australian shops, lights like these are often sold as tri-colour or CCT.

Finding the colour on our product pages

Many of our product pages list the colour temperature with the installation details, in the maker's wording, and most of those say warm: of the 44 LED pendants that list one there, 34 say warm or soft white and 7 more let you choose. Two cautions. Names drift between makers here too, so "white light" is 5000K on one of our outdoor wall lights and 6000K on another. And on a few listings, "White Light" or "Bright White" is the colour of the finish or the glass, not of the light. If a fitting takes a separate bulb, the bulb sets the colour, so pick it with the table above.