Some of the most popular types of mirrors currently available are made out of materials which have been available for centuries. Wood for example is a very popular choice for a mirror and can work well in either a modern or traditionally styled home.

Wooden mirrors can either highlight the natural beauty of the wood itself or can come in beautifully painted and stylised designs, where wood is used as a substrate material but unless you stripped the mirror bare you would never know it had been used in the manufacture of the frame.

Wooden mirrors come in every shape and size and make beautiful additions to any home. An extra large gold wreath mirror made of wood, for example, can add a stylish focal point to any room. The carved wooden surround finished in a warming gold colour sparks of opulence and austerity. And with mirrors like this being over two metres in height, they look superb when they are sited over a fireplace in a room with high ceilings or when they are situated in a hallway.

Because wood can be painted quite easily you’ll find wooden mirrors in a plethora of colours and designs, all you have to do is choose a mirror which fits in with your home décor.

One of the most important mirrors in you home is located in the bathroom. We all like to look good and the only way we can check to see we meet our own expectations is to look in a mirror. Bathroom mirrors can help when you are:

• Putting on make-up
• Shaving
• Washing
• Brushing teeth
• Checking skin complexion
• Styling hair
• Styling eyebrows

Most of us don’t even appreciate how often we use a mirror and will often look in a mirror many times over the course of a day without even realising it.

A bathroom mirror can do much more than simply showing you a reflection of yourself. Some bathroom mirrors also feature something which many people crave in a bathroom – that much needed storage space.

Bathroom cabinets can feature a mirror but also have all the space you need for your bathroom condiments. And when the bathroom cabinet door is closed everything can be stored out of sight making your bathroom a chic place to be.

Some of the latest bathroom mirrors also feature built-in lighting so that you don’t have to rely on the conventional lighting in the room and can hence get a clearer, more accurate, view of your reflection.

Man has always been fascinated with his reflection, which until quite recently was only able to be seen in water. The first mirrors were made from polished stone or metal and gave little more than a vague resemblance of the person looking into to them. With advances in glass manufacture, mirror design progressed rapidly, and in combination with metals such as mercury, tin and lead, mirrors as we know them today were finally created.

Today, almost all mirrors use glass in their design, with the majority coated with a fine leaf of metallic foil, which provides the reflection.

Plane mirrors are flat mirrors, which reflect the light without changing the image, but there are also other types of mirrors such as convex and concave mirrors, which distort the light and hence the reflection we see.

Mirrors are now available in many different designs and their use has spread from solely being there to see a reflection, to being one of interesting design and modern art. From contemporary to traditional, you’ll now be able to find a type of mirror which suits your home and tastes perfectly.