Hair talk

Wrapping your head around all the hair colouring techniques can get quite confusing. Nail your hair lingo with our guide

1 Balayage (ba-lee-yage)

Balayage, meaning “to sweep” or ”to paint” in French, gives the hair natural, gradual highlights throughout by free-hand painting hair dye onto the strands.

2 Sombré (som-brey)

If the harsh colour edges of the ombré technique aren’t for you, sombré or subtle ombré may be. It still gives the hair a dye job that has darker roots and lighter ends, but these are seamlessly blended with no sharp colour transition.

3 Flamboyage (flam-boy-yage)

Ever wanted hair that didn’t look noticeably highlighted or coloured? Flamboyage uses both the ombré and balayage techniques to paint colour into tiny sections of hair, over transparent adhesive strips, for subtle peek-a-boo strands of colour.

4 Baby lights

The baby lights technique involves the painting of colour strand by stand or onto tiny sections of hair to create a more dimensional colour— think sun kissed, natural locks.

5 écaille (e-kai-yi)

This technique, meaning tortoiseshell in French, blends a combination of colours such as caramels, various browns and blondes, to create a colour that is subtle, rich and catches the light.