Bourgoin was born on 28 November 1981 in Rennes. Bourgoin's parents, both secondary level teachers, encouraged her to pursue a stable career. She studied for five years at the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes.She became a plastic arts teacher while simultaneously beginning to work as a model; some of her most notable early work as a model was for the photographer Ian Sanderson.

After graduating in 2004, Bourgoin became a presenter for the television program Kawaï ! on Filles TV channel. Two years later, she made a brief appearance on Direct 8.At the same time, she worked with TV presenter Marc Lacombe on a pilot program for PlayStation TV. This television channel never started broadcasting, and the pilot was never distributed.

In 2006, she worked as the weather girl for Le Grand Journal with Michel Denisot, which broadcast nightly on Canal+. To avoid audiences confusing her for fellow Le Grand Journal presenter, Ariane Massenet, Bourgoin selected the pseudonym of "Salomé". As this was rejected by Canal +, she chose the name "Louise Bourgoin" as a tribute to her favorite sculptor, Louise Bourgeois.]

In 2007 she was offered a role in a film, playing a television weather girl in The Girl From Monaco.Subsequently, she played in several films including The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec directed by Luc Besson and Black Heaven directed by Gilles Marchand, a film that was screened Out of Competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.