ATLANTA — A bill in the legislature would deregulate much of the hair and beauty industry in Georgia, with fewer state-required licenses for workers.
This bill would not only impact workers in the hair and beauty industry but also, potentially, its customers.
At "Oh! My Nappy Hair," a longtime salon fixture off Mitchell Street in downtown Atlanta, owner Erica Blevins specializes in natural Black hair. She’s licensed by the state, but she said she didn’t learn her craft in cosmetology school.
"It’s something that we grew up doing in my culture at home – braiding, twisting," Blevins explained. "So, it’s like, why would it be something that requires a license when we’ve been doing it for years?"
House Bill 212 would still require people who cut and professionally color hair to get a state license. But it would let folks who do braiding, blow-dry styling, threading and makeup to go to work without the license currently required.
"These things are already allowed without a license if you're working in a store or if you're working on a movie set, and it's happening all over Georgia now," said state Rep. David Jenkins (R-Grantville).
"Absolutely not!" countered Nyssa Green, a licensed makeup artist.
"Deregulating means it becomes the wild, wild west," she explained. "Like, anybody can just wake up and decide--? No. Absolutely not. No, that’s not the way to go at all."
Green said the bill would eliminate the hundreds of hours of valuable training a state license requires.
"It covers everything from sanitation to sterilization to proper makeup artistry and that, I promise you, you cannot learn unless you go to school," she said emphatically.
Rep. Jenkins is framing his measure as a jobs bill, which would make it easier to fill jobs in fields that now require state licenses.