What’s the Difference Between Voile and Dimout Roller Blind Fabric?
When choosing a fabric for your blinds, deciding how much light you want to pass through the blind (during the day and night) should be the biggest determining factor.
Too much light streaming in throughout the day can cause glare on screens and overheating from sunlight, whilst light coming in at night can disrupt sleep and inhibit privacy.
However, there’s a balance between keeping out excess glare and creating privacy, while still retaining a view out of the window and taking advantage of natural daylight to reduce the need for artificial lighting.
This is when light-filtering fabrics are your best choice.
‘Light-filtering’ is an umbrella term for any fabric that isn’t a blackout, which block 100% of the light passing through the material.
There are two types of light-filtering fabrics that we talk about a lot. These are voiles and dimouts. Both fabric types block out some degree of light, but the amount varies hugely.
So, what is the difference between a voile and a dimout?
Voile Fabrics
Voile fabrics, sometimes referred to as ‘sheers’, are very translucent and allow a view through the fabric. They let a lot of natural light through the fabric whilst diffusing glare.
Voile fabrics wouldn’t be ideal if you were looking to create shade, as the amount of light that comes through would barely make the room any darker. Voiles tend to just diffuse the worst of the glare, for example on a TV screen, but don’t make the room darker.
Voiles still allow a view through the fabric but add some privacy. During the day, most people won’t be able to look into your home through the blind unless they were stood right up to the window.
However, when your internal lights are on in the evening and it’s darker outside than inside, voile fabrics will allow people to see into your home, so that is something to bear in mind.
For this reason, Voile fabrics tend to be used in conjunction with more opaque shading. A common pairing is a voile blind and a dimout blind in the same window, or even a voile curtain with a blackout blind. This way you still let in natural light during the day whilst getting privacy at night.
Dimout Fabrics
Dimout fabrics are on the other end of the light filtering spectrum than a voile blind. The key difference between the two is that a dimout blind does not let you see through it.
For some people, a black or dark-coloured dimout fabric in black or blue will almost give a blackout effect. If it’s bright out and the blinds are closed, they might be able to make out vague dark furniture shapes when their eyes have adjusted, but the room will still be dim.
Light-coloured dimout fabrics won’t cut out nearly as much light as this.
What we refer to usually as a dimout fabric is one that doesn’t allow a view through but shades or partially darkens a room.
However, a dimout blind won’t ever make a room pitch black or block out all light – for that you will need a blackout fabric.
Dimout fabrics are some of the most common in living rooms and bedrooms where a total blackout isn’t required. For example, if you like waking up with some natural light coming through the window, a light-coloured dimout blind will allow some light in through the fabric itself and around the edges of the fabric.
Our recommendations
At Umbra we work with a huge range of fabric suppliers to make sure we have a solution for every project.
Over the years we’ve found a range of light-filtering voiles and dimout fabrics that we recommend to customers for both their performance and their aesthetic appeal. Here’s a few of our favourites.
To find out more about fabric properties, our fabric range and which fabric is best for you, check out our other blog posts:
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