Minnesota cosmetology licensing is overly burdensome

The Minnesota Board of Cosmetology licenses occupations for workers in the beauty industry and is perhaps the most widely known licensing board in the state, both due to its expansive reach and burdensome regulations.

In 2005, for instance, the Institute for Justice led a case calling on the board to allow African hair braiding without a license. Before 2019, African hair braiders had to undergo 1,550 hours of training. Interestingly, none of this training had anything to do with hair braiding. The legislature passed a law in 2019 requiring the board to amend its requirements.

In 2019, the board sent a cease and desist letter to freelance makeup and hairstyling artists practicing at “special events” — like weddings — without a salon manager license. Yet a salon manager license takes 4,250 hours of school training and two exams. For someone with a cosmetology license, it takes 1,700 hours of salon work, none of which particularly prepares a practitioner for working at weddings or other special events. The legislature intervened by passing a law to exempt freelance artists from licensing.

The tyranny of licensing is, unfortunately, not exclusive to the cosmetology licensing board, as can be seen by a statement put out by the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA). In their new report, OLA

found that certain aspects of Minnesota’s complex cosmetology licensing structure and requirements do not contribute to public health or safety, but do make licensing more expensive and burdensome for licensees. We recommend a number of changes to the licensing structure and requirements.

Indeed, cosmetology licensing is rife with inconsistencies and overly complex rules for the seemingly uncomplicated jobs. For example;

1. To earn a salon manager license, one needs at most 4,250 hours of formal training. However, a salon manager license does not require specialized skill or training.
2. Instructors in the cosmetology industry have to obtain a separate license for each practice that they teach. However, there are no special training requirements for each practice.
3. To manage a cosmetology school, one must have a cosmetology license. Practitioners with a specialty license have to hire someone with a cosmetology license to manage their school.
4. Cosmetology has four licensing levels — operator, salon manager, instructor, and school manager — all with gradually increasing levels of requirements. Yet most require the same type of training and skill.
5. Practitioners interested in hair styling only have to undergo training for a full cosmetology license. This means that they spend time and money training in areas in which they don’t practice
6. Under state law, permits for special events face more stringent requirements than permits for home services. However, the scope for the former is narrower than the latter.

Cosmetology is objectively a low-risk profession, unlike other professions like health care, which do warrant some level of oversight. The fact that so much regulation arise within cosmetology suggests that these rules have less to do with safety. Instead, they exist to kill competition.

As other states are moving to remove barriers that restrict mostly low-income individuals from entering lucrative occupations, it is time Minnesota does the same.