The beauty industry offers great opportunities for work and entrepreneurship, yet outdated occupational licensing laws often prevent people from successfully entering this field.   

States require aspiring cosmetologists, barbers, estheticians, and nail technicians to spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars attending schools to gain occupational licenses. The time and money spent getting an individual license comes at a great cost to aspiring beauty professionals, who often incur significant debt to meet excessive personal qualifications required by occupational licensing laws. 

Rather than blocking entry into the beauty industry, states can leave hiring and training decisions to salon owners and simply inspect salons to protect public health and safety. Inspecting facilities is the same tried and true approach that governments use to regulate restaurants to protect consumers without creating needless barriers to workers earning a living. It is also the approach that several countries in the European Union and the United Kingdom have taken to regulate cosmetology and barbering.  

IJ’s model Salon Inspection Act repeals individual occupational licenses and replaces them with facility licenses and inspections. It sets sanitation standards for governments to follow when inspecting facilities to ensure salons are safe and clean. And it exempts safe beauty services, like simple shampooing and styling, from regulation. Finally, it allows consumers to bring a civil action in court against a salon if they are injured and to recover attorneys’ fees. 

With IJ’s Salon Inspection Act, state legislators can remove needless obstacles to work and allow salon owners to set their own qualifications for employment and training.