Make your multi-colored LED Christmas lights look like warm incandescent

In recent years, LED Christmas lights have gained popularity-- as they should, since they are far more energy efficient than traditional incadescents! Things that are good for the earth (and my energy bill!) make me happy. :) However, sometimes I miss the warm, comforting glow of the incandescent lights from my Christmas past. I know I'm not alone. Companies have finally started to come out with "warm white"-- a warm LED alternative, a welcome shift back toward the comforting, inviting light that we should be able to enjoy around the holidays. However, companies still haven't figured out that they have yet to perfect the multi-color LED Christmas lights! The blue light in most mutli-color LED strands is so blindingly strong it overpowers all the other colors, and the magenta pink shade is missing in nearly all the popular brands. Perhaps it bothers me because pink is my favorite color, but there's just something comforting and Christmas-y about that warm magenta shade that the primary colors in today's LED strands are missing. Most strands I've seen feature red, blue, yellow, orange and green, which in my opinion makes them look like they would fit better in a kindergarten classroom than on a Christmas tree. But to each their own!

Even pictures of LED lights hurt my eyes.

So, hoping to keep my electric bill costs down this year, I went on the hunt for warm, multi-colored LED lights for an affordable price. When that couldn't be found, I tried to find a set that included my beloved magenta color. I found a few options (For example, Set of 100 Multi-Color LED Mini Christmas Lights - Green Wire) beyond my price range. I finally settled on purchasing sets of 300 lights from Big Lots for a much more affordable price, AND the color scheme included purple, which I was hoping would turn out to be close-ish to magenta when lit.

Unfortunately, after plugging them in, the purple bulbs were just blue plus red and so the bright blue light was still overpowering. Additionally, I discovered that dome-shaped lights do not diffuse well when bright blue and green spots peppered my ceiling and walls from my new LEDs. The mini incandescent bulb shape diffuses the light out the sides so that they don't become tiny spotlights.

cold, uninviting spotlights

I knew then that I could either return them or try to find a DIY fix for my disappointment. Preferring the latter, I pulled a red Sharpie marker from my office supply drawer and colored on one of the blue bulbs (my least favorite) to test what effect the marker would have on the quality of light. 

To my delight, it significantly dulled that eye-piercing blue quality and reduced the "spotlight effect" at the same time! 

Encouraged, I colored in a purple bulb-- and it turned pink! 

Woo-hoo! Success!

Ecstatic with my discovery, I immediately set to work coloring in the tops of every single bulb (to reduce the spotlights on my walls) and completely covering the blue and purple bulbs. Comparing the untouched LED strands to the strand I had hand-colored showed a significant improvement in the quality of light. 

Marked LEDs on left, untouched LEDs on right.

Untouched LEDs on left, marked LEDs on right. Notice, no spotlights on the right!

In the end, I found affordable colored LEDs that didn't blind me and that featured the missing magenta. They still aren't as... pastel, as incandescent lights are, but they look significantly better than they did straight out of the box. Maybe in a few years they'll figure out how to more closely replicate the incandescent colors in energy-saving LEDs, but now I'm not holding my breath. My walls no longer have spots on them and pink light is back on my multi-color tree. I am contently writing in the warm glow of my holiday decorations. Life is good. :)

If you decide to try this on your own LED lights, please be aware of the following lessons I learned during this task:

• Test-color each bulb to see what you like before tackling a full strand. Some colors (like green) can be partially-colored to warm but not totally obscure. 
• Blue LED lights will still shine brightly even after being colored over completely by a brand new marker(so don't worry about at least doing it once to see how you like it!)
• If you have cool white LEDs, coloring them with the red marker will not "warm" them, they will turn red. 
• The newer the marker, the darker the effect. Older, used markers will impart less ink and will give a lighter effect (I started with an old marker and moved to a new one to learn this). Brand new markers cover more completely and are much more effective at reducing the spotlight effect. 
• The marker may easily wipe off of the bulbs for a short time, so wear clothes that you don't care about and try not to sit on a white couch. 
• The task is relatively tedious but listening to Christmas music or chatting with friends while coloring your lights makes it much more fun! 

If you're like me, hopefully you won't hesitate to buy LED lights this year. They are great for the planet and great for your wallet, and now they can even be beautiful too!