Xenon bulbs also depend on a heated filament to generate light, so they will also be hot.

The fixture will affect the amount of heat that will reach you. If you are affected by energy efficiency laws, you will need to put them on occupancy switches.

Xenon bulbs generate slightly less heat for light output than plain Halogen, but not by much.

Both bulbs must be protected from any contact or they can burn you (badly).

If you touch the bulb when inserting it the oil from your fingers will cause them to explode in short order when turned on.
The residue is burned black almost instantly and results in spot overheating of the quartz envelope above its melting point.

THAT hot.

We have some modiernist George Kovacs fixtures over the mirrors in our bathrooms which use 50 watt BA15D xenon bulbs. The bulbs are thin, so the fixture enclosing them can likewise be thin. They are very bright and emit a beautiful light.

On the down side, they do get hot. They cost about $10 each. There are currently no LED alternatives - at least that I know about. And as Brickeyee mentioned, when replacing them, you have to be careful not to touch the glass.

While I would now go with LED's instead of Xenon puck lamps, at the time, 2006, they were very rare, if available at all,so we went with Xenons, alto we do have some Halogens, "here and there".

While both Halogens and Xenons do get hot, the Xenons do not get near as hot and it will NOT! hurt a Xenon lamp if you handle it with "bare fingers" (course only a cold lamp), but were you to do the same with a Halogen lamp, it would INDEED shorten the life of said lamp. There is no warning on Xenon lamps about handling , like there is on most Halogen lamps. Also the average life expectancy of a halogen lamp is 2000 hours whilst the life expectancy of a Xenon Lamp is 10,000 hours (5 times the life)!

I back lit the Onyx surround for our gas fireplace with Xenon lights as it's a pain to change one , should one ever blow, so far in 6 years none have, but neither has any of our Halogens---but----all these lights are on dimmers and very rarely are they turned all the way up.

Today, 2012, I would go ALL LED's, and in fact I just replaced the 8 can lights, 35 watt halogens in the kitchen with 8 watt LED's and they are actually brighter than the halogens were, and doing a "little math"
(8 x 35 = 280 watts)
(8 x 8 = 64 watts)

So we are saving over 200 watts here, assuming that all were run at "full brightness" which they rarely were, but our "Before Electric Bill" was typically in the $60's range, the last bill (after switching to LED's) was $51.

Good luck with your project!

Gary

Thanks - we ended up finding some fixtures that take a regular bulb, which we will replace with LED. We're adding LED recessed lights to the bathroom also. We had them put in the kitchen and they're wonderful. While I still love some of the xenon fixtures, I'm happy we found an alternative that will use LED. Nice light, more efficient and way less heat, which in south Tx is always a good thing! Thanks for everyone's help.