A guide to understanding new light-bulb terms, LEDs and more

Anyone who has stood in confusion in the light-bulb aisle (and that’s most of us) knows that technology and the push to save energy are continuing to flip the script on home lighting options. The good news is the new bulbs are much more efficient than old-school incandescents. “The new types of light bulbs, LED in particular, let light-fixture designers create all kinds of lighting designs and fixture designs that they could never create before,” says Karman Hotchkiss, executive editor of Decor magazine. “There are a lot of new shapes out there. There are a lot of really artistic interpretations of lighting, things like sparkle and effects that designers couldn’t create with old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.”