Blackout curtains serve one purpose – to keep as much light out of your home as possible. Any medical specialist will tell you how important natural sunlight is in your life. A lot of people have forgotten this simple fact. Most of us spend our lives cooped up in cubicles all day, and by the time we leave the office, the sun has gone, and after a while it just becomes a distant memory of a bright light in the sky. Then, when we go on holidays, all we are told is how dangerous it is to be out in then sun. Get in the shade or you’ll get skin cancer, cover yourself in sunscreen every couple of hours, make sure you wear a shirt and hat at all times. While this advice is important, and the threat of skin cancer from too much exposure is real, it can be confusing when we are being told one thing here and another thing there.
Having natural sunlight in your home is extremely important; it gives you a sense of wellbeing and makes your house a more cheerful place to be. In places like your kitchen and sunroom, you want to maximise the amount of light that you get, to make the most of this atmosphere. There are, however, times and places in your room where you want to minimise the amount of light that comes in as much as possible.
Take your bedroom for example. Sure, it’s nice if you are able to air it during the day, but when night comes and you are trying to get a good nights sleep, there is nothing worse than being blinded by a full moon, or traffic lights, or street signs peering through your window in the middle of the night. 
Another example of when a blackout curtain in your home can be beneficial is if you or one of your family members are a shift worker. Shift workers get home after a hard nights work, and then have to cope with the fact that their body is telling them it’s daytime and not time to sleep. Having blackout curtain lining in your bedroom can trick your body into thinking it is night time, and help you get the sleep you need.
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The bedroom isn’t the only room in the house that can benefit from these types of curtains. If you have spent a bit of money on a home cinema system, then there are going to be times when you are going to want to use it during the day, such as on a rainy Sunday afternoon, to relax and watch a movie. There is nothing worse than trying to watch TV and having the glare bouncing off your screen from the sun shining through the window. Having blackout curtains installed in your lounge room will give you the effect you are after, to feel like you are actually at the movies.
Some people have other reasons for installing these curtains. For example, I have a relative who collects antiques, and they need to keep them away from as much direct sunlight as possible, to prevent from fading and decreasing in value. This is the same reason that these curtains are used to great effect in museums and libraries. Another place outside of the home that uses them is in the corporate world. The modern style of office has a lot of windows, taking advantage of sweeping city views in high rise apartments. However, these same apartments are used for important meetings, and sometimes those views need to be completely blocked out so that people can concentrate on the task at hand.
Finally; a word of warning. Do not get confused between blackout shades and blackout curtains. If it is a complete blackout solution that you are after, then shades are the better choice. Specifically, shades that attach themselves to the inside of your window frame. See, curtains hang on the outside of your window, and there will still be a little bit of light that seeps through the edges of the curtain. It will still stop any direct sunlight from coming in, but they won’t give you complete darkness.