ROCK BANDS PROVE TO BE THE FUSSIEST FOR TOP CITY HAIRDRESSER ... but it’s not star clients who impress Dylan – teenage girls fighting cancer do
HIS clients have included Judy Murray, flamboyant singer Paloma Faith and British super model Jordan Dunn.
But Scotland’s current reigning hairdresser of the year, Dylan Brittain jokes he wouldn’t recognise most celebrities even if they were sitting in his chair.
Dylan, who runs Scottish brand Rainbow Room’s George Square salon, clinched the title for the second year running recently, earning him a ‘hero-gram’ at the Scottish Parliament.
But the modest super-stylist says he’s more impressed by the courage of the teenage girls fighting cancer that he always makes time for twice a week in the salon.
Dylan create personalised wigs for young women who have lost their hair through chemotherapy as part of his work with the Teenage Cancer Trust.
He said: “I love doing it. The thing is, I’ll see maybe two to three girls a week and I just feel like it’s good to be able to give something back.
“For those girls, they are going through the hardest thing in their life so for them to just have that feel-good factor....It really is an amazing charity.
“Even though I am so busy – this year I haven’t had a day off since the beginning of the year and I travel all over the Europe – I will always still fit that in.
“It takes up an hour consultation and two hours treatment but I absolutely love doing it. I couldn’t give it up.”
Dylan, who is from Erskine but now lives in Glasgow with his husband Marc, has been working for the famous Scottish hairdressing brand, Rainbow Room for 23 years, learning under the expert guidance of founders Alan and Linda Stewart.
Next year the well-known brand, which has 12 salons in the West of Scotland, will celebrate its 40th birthday.
His first role was passing up hair grips to other stylists and he now heads up the team as well as seeing around 40 clients a week and styling some of the biggest names in pop and rock at festivals including Transmission and the Mobos.
He said: “Rainbow Room used to have a salon at 15 Royal Exchange Square, set up by Alan and Linda, who are still a huge part of the business.
“Next year the company will celebrate its 40th birthday. Most staff come and they won’t leave because there are so many career paths.
“My career path was definitely artistic but the best thing is seeing the satisfaction on client’s faces. I’m lucky as most clients let me do what I want.
“I have got clients who have been coming to me for 23 years. In the academy, those clients were paying £8 and they are now paying just slightly less than £80 for a haircut.”
While he has a bulging black book of celebrity clients Dylan admits he isn’t fazed by his better known customers.
“Sometimes I’ll be doing someone’s hair and they say to me, ‘do you know who that is’ and I’ll say no,” he laughs. “I’m terrible for recognising people.
“You do have to sometimes pinch yourself because you are entering into this different world but they are just people.”
Although he won’t name names, he reveals it isn’t the uber-preened boys and girl band who are his fussiest clients.
He said: “What I find most