How Hairstylist Reese Roque Created This Sculptural Ribbon Hair Look

Some hairstyles are all about styling what’s already there. Others treat hair as a blank slate—meant to be shaped, formed, and molded like clay or marble. This, in particular, belongs to the latter: hair folded and shaped into ribbons, built strand by strand until it held its own architecture.

You don’t comb this hairstyle into place. You engineer it. For this Allure Philippines Beauty Breakdown, professional hairstylist Reese Roque walks us through how she turned long, thick hair into a sculptural, ribbon-folded updo—placing a bow on top of the ube-inspired makeup look by makeup artist Booya Mocorro.

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 The preparation and products she used

Much like a makeup base, hair also needs its own prep work. Reese started with a heat protectant—a non-negotiable, she says, given how much heat styling the look demanded—then sectioned the hair and applied a styling cream. 

The thicker and longer the hair, the more sections she needed, since each one would become its own ribbon fold. She ran each section through a flat iron, strand by strand, locked it in with hairspray as she went, then held it in shape with a duckbill clip while it set—keeping the ribbon sections separated so they wouldn’t unravel. 

Her three go-to products for this look? A Schwarzkopf Heat Protectant, the Got2B Ultra Glued Indestructible Styling Hair Gel, and the Got2B Glued Blasting Freeze Spray. 

The techniques needed to sculpt the hair

Her final step, Reese says, is also the one that makes or breaks the look: combing out each section until it’s uniform before locking it into the ribbon’s shape. “Because the cleaner that it is, the nicer that the whole look is going to be, I would say,” she explains. 

Beyond the ribbon technique, Reese doesn’t work from a strict plan when building sculptural hair. She thinks of it like she’s doing performance art, taking inspiration from a reference without copying it exactly.

“Honestly, whenever I do sculptural hair, I always play by feel. Whenever I start shaping, I let the hair guide me,” she said. “It almost feels like whenever I do sculptural hair, I feel like I’m doing performance art. Because I’m doing something on the spot—you shape it on the spot, and I always check in the mirror what the whole look actually looks like.”

The ribbon hair

The hardest part was the model’s hair itself: it was long enough to fall past her lower back and thick enough that Reese had to divide it into more sections—and fold more ribbons—than she’d planned. 

Once shaped, the style didn’t need any touch-ups. Everything was locked in with hairspray, even right before the model stepped in front of the camera—and held its structure for the full indoor shoot. If done outdoors, it would’ve been a different story, Reese noted. 

Her advice for anyone attempting this at home: don’t make it an everyday style. The amount of heat and hold required can be stressful on the hair. But, if you’re set on trying it yourself, two things matter: define each fold clearly so it doesn’t collapse into a knot, and be confident. 

“You kind of doubt yourself whenever you shape or manipulate the shape of the [sculptural] hairstyle because you’re seeing it unfold as you create it, so I feel like being confident while doing your hair will show up in the results,” she said. 

No two angles of the finished style look quite the same. When you turn the head slightly to the side, a different fold catches the light. “It’s not uniform, and it’s irregular, and it has its own charm,” Reese said. She even described it like a gift wrapped with a ribbon, especially with Booya’s makeup. 

“But in the end, I think that it really looked like a great hairstyle on her; it almost looked like she was a little present, like alam mo yung ano yung may pasalubong na ube tas meron pa syang ribbon on top, so I think it really looked cute, with Booya’s makeup,” she said.

Ribbon by ribbon, fold by fold, this hairstyle proves that hair can be engineered intentionally, much like anything sculpted by hand. Paired with Booya’s ube-inspired makeup, it’s a reminder that a beauty statement isn’t completed by what’s on the face—it’s built strand by strand, too.

Art Direction: Mikiyo Ricamora. Photography: John Llamas. Makeup: Booya Mocorro. Hair: Reese Roque, assisted by Charlize Martinez. Model: Naomi Serrano of Farah Models. Photographer’s Assistant: John Mark Advincula.