Possibly one of my most asked questions is about my light up mirror. When I tell people it's just a strip light from Amazon they can't seem to comprehend how it works -- I think it's so easy it's almost confusing! So I wanted to put together a detailed process of how you can get it done at home within 5 minutes!
(link for my look here)
To start, this is how my mirror looks complete ^. The mirror itself is about 5 years old from Ikea (it's the HOVET mirror) and it's the best if you're looking for a reasonably priced, sturdy, big full-length mirror. The idea came to me in part because of TikTok and in other parts because of some fashion bloggers.
I've been seeing this one mirror go around online that is a full length, LED light-up mirror with these beautiful lights built into the actual mirror itself. I was always in awe of how well lit their stories, videos and images were but after tracking the mirror down, I found it was over $3,000!!!! I mean, I'm all for a good splurge but that is just crazy.
So I was scrolling through TikTok (as one does) and noticed all the kids we're decorating their room with these LED strip lights from Amazon that run about $15. And something just kind of triggered in my mind -- what if I find white strip lights and make my own mirror? And that's what I did.
To be honest I was a pie in the sky idea that kind of turned out amazing. My cousin and I added them to the mirror and within ten minutes we had a full light up mirror for a fraction of the cost.
The best part of all? The process could not be any easier! (this will be long but I want to be thorough + detailed!)
What you'll need:
1 Mirror (this is the one I have)
1 Light Strip (this is what I used)
Again, you can do this with any mirror but it turned out the strip fit perfectly on the silver trim of the mirror (I was debating putting it on the mirror or the trim but it worked perfectly with the trim, so we went that way). We mocked it out to figure out where to best start the strip, and in doing so realized we only had enough for 3 of the 4 sides of the mirror. You'll see below the bottom doesn't have any lights -- nor does it need it!
You also need to plug in the lights so having a mirror by an outlet is key -- thankfully for me, there is an outlet right behind the mirror so we started on that side of the strip light (one end is connected to the plug, the other is the end of the light).
To start, we wiped the trim down (with an alcohol swab from the package) to clean it, and started peeling the 3M tape from the back of the strip light little by little. You do need to be a little careful with this part because if you pull at the wrong place, the tape itself will come off. What you need to peel is the brown cardboard off (it is stamped with 3M all over it) and test to make sure what is left is sticky.
Then you just go little by little around the mirror. We would peel then stick, peel then stick -- and apply pressure when sticking. You want to make sure it's really on there! For the corners, we ended up actually folding it on itself which I've heard isn't ideal (there are corner converter connectors for this specific reason) but it worked just fine for us.
Then when we came to the end, we just cut the excess off -- again have now learned that there are specific cut lines where it's "safe" to cut. Someone said if you cut at the wrong place it can ruin the whole thing lol so I guess we got pretty lucky!
Once that was all set, we placed the power button on the side of the mirror. This is like a little clicker that turns the lights on/off, as well as adjusts the brightness. The clicker also comes with a 3M tape/sticker so it was easy to place on the side of the mirror (again, this Ikea mirror is perfect for it since the sides are so thick) and we were good to go!
Below are the light modes. Starting with off, the collage (starting at the top left) going from setting 1, the lowest light, to 4, and the final picture being the 5th setting at full brightness:
As you can see it's pretty bright! I ended up buying "cool white" lights because they were the only white color I could find in a 16ft length. I would have preferred warm white only because the blue/brightness of lights like these tend to give me a headache. But pain is beauty, right?? Even with the extra brightness, I love how it looks and how well it works lighting up any photo/video. It's best on overcast days and at night, when the light would normally be pretty dismal.
Here it is all lit up by itself:
