Hairstylists sectioning hair for precision cutting, colour application, or blowouts, and at-home users who want their hair to stay cleanly divided while styling. Best suited to medium-to-long or thick hair sections; short hair or bangs may need a smaller clip.

The expand-in-the-middle hinge is what separates this from an ordinary sectioning clip: it's built to hold a genuinely thick or heavy section of hair in place, which matters most when you're working through dense or long hair during a cut, colour, or blowout and don't want a section slipping loose partway through.

Comb the section of hair you want to isolate smooth and hold it away from the rest. Squeeze the clip at its centre hinge to open it, position it close to the scalp over the section, then release to let it clamp shut around the hair. Add clips as needed to keep each section separate while you work, and unclip once you're ready to cut, colour, or style that section.

The expanding centre hinge is the real advantage here — it grips a noticeably thicker chunk of hair than a standard flat clip without slipping toward the ends, which cuts down on how many clips you need per head during a cut or colour service. The trade-off is precision: that same wide, expandable design is bulkier than a slim duckbill clip, so it isn't the best choice for very fine, thin sectioning lines that some colouring or layering techniques call for, and the plastic hinge can loosen its grip over time with repeated exposure to blow-dryer heat.