How Are Blackout Roller Blinds So Blackout?

The Advantages of Blackout Blinds

Pitch. Black. Darkness.

The kind where you can’t see your hand in front of your face, where you’re not sure if your eyes are actually open. What time is it? Where am I? To begin to understand how and why blackout blinds work and why they can give you the best night’s sleep, let’s take a quick look at the origins of the blackout blind.

A Brief History of the Blackout Blind

The blackout blind first joined the British public’s consciousness in a tempestuous, fiery whirlwind of fear, a tool borne out of necessity more than style. On September 1st 1939 Britain was blacked-out for the first time - two days before World War Two broke out.

Blackout blinds and curtains were used to stop light leaking out into the streets at night. Combined with extinguished street lamps and covered car headlights, Britain did its best to block out the light and provide no obvious targets for enemy bombers.

Blackout Blinds Today

High-quality blackout fabric provides absolute darkness, and over the years, the focus shifted towards keeping outside light from entering the home, instead of the other way around. Today made to measure blackout blinds come in a wide range of blackout fabrics, colours and patterns and are commonly used in bedrooms and spaces where absolute darkness is required.

Beige Toscana Blackout Roller Blind From £14.50

Iron Toscana Blackout Roller Blind From £14.50

Bosa Plum Blackout Roller Blind From £11.40

To know what makes a good blackout blind fabric, you need to check its thickness. Blackout fabric is typically two-ply and sometimes you’ll find fabric that is even four-ply. This is a technical way of saying layers. The more layers a piece of blind fabric has, the less chance you’ll ever have of finding a pin-prick hole casting a tranquillity-shattering laser-beam of sunlight through the fabric’s weave.

For a proper blackout blind to function in your room, we recommend using a roller blind. Vertical blinds with blackout fabric can be just as effective but natural light can get around the individual louvres of a vertical blind.

Blackout roller blinds are available in a range of colours and are made to measure, meaning we build them to fit your exact measurements. This means you are able to ensure you get the perfect fit when it comes to installing your blackout blind, sealing your window against light leakage in a far better manner than any readymade alternative you can buy from a high street retailer.

Advantages of a Blackout Blind

Blackout roller blinds will help you sleep better and we recommend them particularly for bedrooms. A lot of parents enjoy the benefits of having a blackout blind in a child’s room because it can darken a room if they take a daytime nap.

Spring Parma Blackout Roller Blind From £29.50

Bosa Magnolia Blackout Roller Blind From £11.40

Starlight Pavia Blackout Roller Blind From £29.50

However, there are other benefits of made to measure blackout blinds that can also help you sleep. The thicker fabric keeps outside noise levels down, acting as a kind of sound-proofing barrier to the outside world. Obviously, you’re still going to hear some noise but the fabric acts as a useful bit of acoustic dampening which is always beneficial for light sleepers.

In the winter, less heat is able to escape and cold air is unable to enter the room thanks to the blackout fabric. The fabric acts as a layer of insulation and so it will keep the cold air window side and not allow it to leak into the room. Yet in the summer, heat is slower to enter your room because the thicker fabric blocks it, and some fabrics have a white, often PVC backing which works to reflect much of it back out through the window.

You’ll find the colourful, perhaps patterned, fabric on the side of the fabric that faces into the room and a  thicker fabric layer on the back. Don’t forget, blackout blinds don’t have to be only black in colour! The backing fabric is the light blocker as there is no weave for light to get through, as it would with general textile fabric.

Candy Pink Prato Blackout Roller Blind From £29.50

Sky Savona Blackout Roller Blind From £29.50

Vanilla Stockholm Blackout Blind From £29.50

Having the thick blackout fabric backing also ensures the colour is consistent on the blind throughout the day, which is different to how a dimout fabric will behave. With dimout fabric, you’ll notice subtle changes in tone and colour as the sun moves across the sky. However, blackout fabric maintains a more consistent and often bolder colour at any time of day.