We have "twirly" bulbs everywhere. I have blue ones in the overhead light in the living room for when we need clear light, and yellow ones in the lamps. (The lamp shades are also gold, so the light is very comfortable when only the lamps are on.) I have a few bulbs that are...well, hard to describe. They are a "twirly" bulb inside a larger globe, just a little bigger than a standard incandescent. I have these outside because they seem to stand up to weather a lot longer. In fact, the back porch light used to burn out every couple months, but this globe bulb has been out there for at least 2 years now.
The globe one and the ones in the bedrooms are slow bulbs, they take a few minutes to get to full light. The ones in the living room are not slow, they are instant on.
One thing that may be different is that most of mine are Philips. I don't like the GE ones nearly as well.