You may have heard of obmre, sombre and balayage hair, but there’s also Flamboyage hair. It’s just a way to dying hair that usually involves thin highlights made with a specific tool.

The method is usually achieved by making highlights using transparent adhesive strips to better see how much hair is being colored at different layers and lengths of the hair. These transparent strips come from Davines, and are usually available at one of their salons. If you don’t have a Davines Salon close to you, you can also pick up a similar product here.

To get the look, the transparent strips are used much in the same way that foil is used to highlight hair. You section off strands of your hair, place the transparent strip under each strand and coat the hair strand with dye. The interesting feature with the Davines strips is that they fold up and have that adhesive quality that secures the strip over the hair to keep the coated strand away from the rest of the hair. If you’re coloring all your hair, it’s a good way to get the dye worked in evenly.

The Flamboyage strips are usually used to create a classic wispy highlighting effect. The colorists at Davines actually have a technique where they use a thin needle-like tool to weave in between wide but thin chunks of hair, like if you’re weaving a basket. They pull the tool upward, which separates out half of the thin strands, and then those are what they place the transparent strip under. So you’re left with very thin, interspersed highlights in the hair that look very natural, radiant and multi-faceted.

The strips can also be used to create a balayage look. For this look, the dye will start lower and lighter on the hair strand, applied in a subtle painting motion. From there, it’s a simple matter of dousing the end of the strands in more dye. A similar technique can be used for obmre hair, where the dye will be applied to just the lower end of the strand.

For very long balayage or ombre hair, a good technique is to put the entire adhesive strip over each hair strand, and then generously apply the dye to the hair from underneath. Then the dyed hair will sit over a towel or the plain strip under it, no folding required.

As far as choosing a color, this look is best with slightly lightened hair, meaning colors that are about two shades lighter than the natural shade. That will give the look a natural, gradual feel that will be easy to work with at home. Anything more complicated is best done at a salon.

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