Hair

Pro Hair Grad Aaron Brousseau Keeps Cool in Rain

There’s no way to understate it. Aaron Brousseau loves hair. He always has. And he probably always will. 

“It’s the ability you have to impact people’s lives,” explains the Blanche Macdonald Pro Hair graduate and Stylist at Vancouver’s Rain Salon. “Hair is one of people’s biggest accessories. I can give someone a haircut and they’ll feel like a new person. That’s the most rewarding part of the job.” 

Aaron’s enthusiasm for his chosen career is infectious. You don’t even have to ask before he’s launching into a story about his latest life-changing cut. 

“I had a lady come in a little while ago. She had hair down to her shoulders. She said she wanted it to look like mine. I checked first, because sometimes I’m a little hesitant to give someone such a huge change. I said, ‘I’m willing to do it if you’re sure.’  

“When I was finished she scared the crap out of me by starting to cry. I was like, ‘Are you ok?’ She said, ‘I’m crying because I love it!’ She’s already sent so many of her friends to see me.”

Aaron was obsessed with hair long before he ever came to Vancouver and Blanche Macdonald. Growing up as one of twelve siblings in the Northern BC town of Terrace, he was blessed with plenty of models to work on. 

“I’m the third oldest, and the oldest boy,” he continues. “I have four little brothers and seven sisters. We had a family hairdresser that always cut our hair. I watched her a couple of times and thought that I’d give it a go. The first haircut I ever gave was on my brother. I must have been about twelve. I took some clippers and started to cut his hair. Then the guard on the clipper came off and left a nice sized bald spot on his head. It was the most wretched haircut. We ended up shaving it all off. After that I kept practicing on my siblings and their friends and getting better at it. 

“It was always trial and error. Once I turned my best friend’s hair mossy green. She wanted to go from blonde to natural brown. That was the only real disaster.” 

Terrace may be a beautiful part of the world, but it’s hardly the ideal environment where an enthusiastic young hair stylist can learn the finer points of the craft. Aaron’s own stylist understood this and refused to sugar coat the news. 

“She saw me cutting and colouring and getting better on my family and my siblings’ friends. That’s when she said, ‘You need to go to school for this. You have a raw talent. You’re good at what you do, but you need to be trained. If you don’t apply for school by September, I won’t cut your hair any more.’ So I applied to Hair School.” 

Vancouver was the obvious destination. Researching the city’s hair schools led Aaron through the doors of Blanche Macdonald. 

“My friend’s sister had taken the Pro Hair programme at Blanche Macdonald and she was always raving about how great a school it was. I looked into a lot of programmes and Blanche was the one that had everything. I wanted to learn about every aspect of the industry and Blanche Macdonald had it all.” 

After a trip around Europe, Aaron, along with two friends from Terrace, moved into a house in New Westminster and started Hair School. 

“It was amazing!” he insists. “A great experience. When they started teaching me it was like a light bulb was going on. Like, ah, that’s why that happens! It all started to make sense. I never knew how to do things like blending layers and some basic structural shapes, because no one had showed me. I learned a lot about cutting at Hair School. I had a good self-taught foundation, but Blanche Macdonald added so much more. Some of my instructors at school saw my enthusiasm and taught me some advanced techniques. They knew I wanted to learn it. So I had a great foundation when I started at Rain.” 

Canada’s top Hair School also provided the type of experiences Aaron could only dream about in Terrace. With opportunities to create exciting styles literally at his fingertips, Aaron threw himself into Vancouver’s fashion scene.   

“I took every single chance I could,” he smiles. “The Fashion Department is in the same building as the Hair School at Blanche Macdonald, so I’d volunteer to do hair for their photo shoots every week. Through that I met Mel Watts. She saw my eagerness and threw my name out there. My passion is fashion styling. 

“She gave my name to an agency called Agence Emme and I volunteered there so much they started paying me to come back for test shoots with models. I’d be there for six to eight hours and do the hair on ten different girls. Make it big, make it small: that kind of thing. That was my first taste of the fashion world in Vancouver. I did photo shoots galore at Hair School. I did a couple of fashion shows. After the first one they asked me to come back and work at a show that was part of the Olympics.” 

Aaron has been able to continue his excursions into fashion since he joined the team at Rain, one of Vancouver’s busiest and most fashion-forward salons.  

“I came here through work experience at Blanche Macdonald. Phil Loiselle gave us the list of names. I’d just moved to Vancouver so I didn’t really know anything. I thought, ‘Rain, that’s a cool name’. I asked around, and few of the instructors had worked there. They told me about the great advanced education program they have here. I’m a full-time stylist now and was just named Star Employee for the month of June.” 

Rain’s promotional campaign through Groupon.com brought nearly 4,000 new clients into the salon over six months, filling Aaron’s chair and jump-starting his career. As busy as he is on a daily basis, there’s still time to indulge his passion for fashion.  

“I recently volunteered at Vancouver Fashion Week. It was amazing! I worked three days. I talked to the coordinator and at the next Vancouver Fashion Week I’m going to be there every day. That’s my niche. Rain has its own creative team. They saw my drive and now I’m one of the team members. If there’s ever the opportunity to work at a fashion show or photo shoot I can take that opportunity. 

“My experience at Rain has been phenomenal. We have training every week on different cutting styles and colouring patterns. They send our stylists to New York a couple of times a year for training at Bumble and bumble. Then they come back and teach us junior stylists. It’s like a family here. I expected to be in Vancouver for a year. Maybe a year and a half. But Vancouver’s stolen my heart. It has diversity, culture, nightlife. I’m staying here because I’ve found a great salon.” 

Even a bald man would be enthralled when Aaron starts talking about hair. For Aaron, it’s far more than a career. It’s creativity. It’s communication. It’s impossible to resist. 

“If you want to get into hair, do it!” he promises. “I don’t hold back, which is why I’ve got so far. If there’s an opportunity, go for it! Never say no to an opportunity.”