September 29, 2026 · PROFESSIONAL LICENSURE · 11,467 words · 14 speakers · 89 segments
Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to call this informational meeting of the House Professional Licensure Committee to order. Today's meeting will focus on updates to the cosmetology law. And our goal here is to hear from stakeholders, cosmetologists, and business owners about the updates they believe should be made to the Practice Act. Among other things, topics may include new procedures, clarification of existing law, facility changes, and training. I'd ask members to hold all their questions until after the presenters are finished.
And at this point, we'll start at my left here, and the members can introduce them. Good morning.
State Representative Bob Mirsky, 2nd Legislative District, Erie County.
Representative Frank Burns.
Representative Nikki Rivera Lancaster City Manheim Township East Pete Borough Nancy Gans 152nd District Montgomery County Zach Mayco 183rd Lehigh Northampton
Steve Bencer, parts of Lancaster County
Valerie Gatos, 44th District, Allegheny County And we have two members joining us online Representatives Marcel and Malagary
So we'll begin with our first panel, and we'd like to ask that the Department of State start first.
Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Burns, Chairman Enric, and members of this esteemed House Professional Licensure Committee, On behalf of the department, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to present written testimony and to discuss the licensure and inspection of cosmetology salons and cosmetology services. My name is Kalenji Johnson. I'm the Deputy Secretary for Regulatory Programs. I have with me Director Richard Morrissette from the Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement. The Bureau plays an important role in protecting the health and safety of Pennsylvanians by inspecting facilities licensed by the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs and investigating complaints against licensed practitioners and businesses, as well as actors engaged in unlicensed practice. BEI inspectors conduct both inspections and facilities, applying for initial licensure and routine inspections. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Is this better? Okay. I'm sorry. Well, I should start over, but I won't bore you. BEI inspectors conduct both inspections of facilities, applying for initial licensure, and routine inspections of already licensed facilities. BEI inspectors also perform directed inspections of facilities when complaints have been received. Last year, BEI completed over 37,000 investigations and facility inspections amongst all the 29 boards and commissions under the Bureau of Professional Occupations and Affairs. When an individual is opening a new cosmetology salon in the Commonwealth, the salon owner must first submit an application to the State Board of Cosmetology for review. Board staff reviewed that application and the floor plan submitted along with it. to ensure that it meets the square footage requirements in the law and that the floor plan contains the items required in the cosmetology law and regulations. The floor plan must include the positions of the doors, windows, partitions, shampoo basins, adjustable chairs, and other floor equipment. Once the application is reviewed and all the required items have been submitted and completed, is assigned to an inspector from BEI. That inspector schedules a time with the applicant to come to the location for the inspection. The inspector ensures the salon meets the equipment, signage, and space requirements, and ensures that there is no evidence that prohibited items are in either the licensed square footage of the salon or that no prohibited services are being provided within that salon. An inspection can be marked incomplete if there are administrative errors in the application Examples of those errors would be something like a misspelled name or an address of the facility that doesn't exactly match what was submitted in the application. Now, the applicant can correct those mistakes directly to their application in the PAL system. But an inspection can be failed if the salon does not meet the requirements in either the Practice Act or the board regulations. BEI also conducts routine inspections of facilities. These are unannounced inspections that occur biennially. When conducting inspections, the inspector will check to ensure that the facility and cosmetologists working within it are licensed, that health and safety standards are met and that no prohibited activities or prohibited instruments are being used in the licensed salon area. The most frequent reason for failing a routine inspection would be employing unlicensed personnel and or performing services or possessing instruments that are outside the definition of cosmetology. A common question from licensees when a citation is issued for services outside the scope of cosmetology usually relates to timing. It's important to understand that an inspection is a snapshot in time. At the previous inspections, if the service at issue was not being performed or the equipment used for that service was not witnessed by the inspector, then there would be no reason to fail the salon. It is also important to note that a BEI inspector would never issue a citation at an inspection. They would take their report back, and a decision as to whether the citation was warranted would be made by the legal staff from either the prosecution division or the professional compliance office within our office of chief counsel. We are always open to working with this General Assembly on legislation that will eliminate unnecessary burdens for licensees while still protecting the health and safety of the public. Just a couple of years ago, the General Assembly worked to eliminate the license requirement for natural hair braiders. Another example is when this General Assembly reduced the square footage requirement for salons. One example of a change that we would be welcome to engage in discussion with this committee upon would be removal of the prohibition on booth rental and the cosmetology law. As you know, booth rental is allowed under the barber law, and the department would support a legislative change to allow licensed salons to rent chairs to licensed cosmetologists in the same way. We remain committed to our relationship with this committee and to ensuring Pennsylvania is a place where cosmetologists want to live and work. I want to thank you again for the invitation to appear before this committee to talk about the work of BEI and Director Morissette. We're proud of his accomplishments. We're proud of the professionalism of his team and the individuals that work within our Bureau, within the department, as they strive to continue protecting the health and safety of Pennsylvanians. Thank you.
Thank you. If the other presenters would introduce themselves.
Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Aaron Schenk Actually first let me thank the Chairman Chairman Burns and Chairman Emmerich members of the committee My name is Aaron Shank I the executive director of the Mid Association of Career Schools With me today online is Debbie Dunn, who's the president of Lancaster School of Cosmetology. Our association represents over 100 technical colleges and other post-secondary career schools in Pennsylvania and several bordering states. Many of these institutions either specialize in cosmetology programs and or have beauty-related programs as part of their larger catalog of programs. Let me first just begin by thanking the committee on a bill they passed this past year, Senate Bill 331, authorized Pennsylvania to be put in the Interstate Cosmetology Compact. We felt that was a very important law, both for licensees to have portability with their license and also for salons to have more potential employees. So thank you, committee, for that bill. Also would like to thank Representative Solomon for being the House companion sponsor of that bill as well. So thank you. I'll be very quick. We did just a very quick review of several of the bills that are either in the committee or recently put out of the committee that are dealing with the Cosmetology Act on salon services. So I just want to give our comments on each of those bills, and I'll be brief. House Bill 58, this is a change in location, make it easier to do change in locations. We support this legislation. The only thing we ask is that the committee consider amending it to include cosmetology schools as well. So if there's an application from a school, that there be an expedited change of location process as well. House Bill 59, this deals with board inspectors be licensed as cosmetologists for at least five years in practice. Our one question is the way we read that bill, it appears a person would not have to be an employee of the Department of State anymore. We could be wrong with that. There could be a potential contractor, and if I'm wrong with that, I apologize. But if that is the case, we just ask that there's protections against potential bias. House Bill 61, this deals with dermaplaning. Dermaplaning is the practice of breaking skin. This can lead to bleeding. We have several just questions or comments or concerns just we want to put on the record. One is, if that is the case, will schools be required to have stair cycle or other biohazardous waste service at the school? Would it potentially lead to higher insurance costs? Also, the question is, would a doctor have to be on present or other medical professional be on site when this is taught? And finally, the current esthetician license is 300 hours in Pennsylvania. If we were to add dermaplaning into the scope of these schools, we're not sure 300 hours is enough. So we need to potentially look at raising the hours if we add dermaplaning into the education. Next one I have is House Bill 644, this is the booth rental. Our only real question or concern on this is under the federal law right now, our schools are being held to a very high standard on earnings accountability measures. We know the cosmetology profession, whether right or wrong, there's already problems with people claiming tips and not reporting services. That comes back to hurt schools because our graduates are not shown to have high levels of income. And the federal government is doing a regulation right now that will essentially punish schools that are not putting graduates into the field with high incomes. So our one ask is if we do a booth rental model, somehow we make sure that we can make sure services are being reported, tips are being claimed. I know in the barber side, I've been to various barber shops that have chair rentals, and it's all cash-based a lot of times. Money's put into an envelope. There's no receipts. So we just want to make sure that does not happen on the cosmetology side because, like I said, the schools will be hurt because the income's not being reported, and then our graduates are shown to have low incomes. So I just ask that that issue be addressed as that legislation moves forward. Next one, House Bill 1082, the mobile unit salons. The only question I have is the Commissioner just mentioned that the unannounced inspections are done each year. So we're just curious how that is done, if it's a mobile unit, and you don't know where that unit is physically at on any given day. So just a question we want the committee to consider as you move forward. Last issue I'll put forward, not directly in the Cosmetology Act, but we support House Bill 1290. This is the bill that would provide the Department of State the ability to issue advisory opinions. That's a very important piece of legislation. I know it's not in the Act directly, but it will help both the Cosmetology Act, the Barber Act, and many other professional licensees. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Patel.
Hello? How about now? Okay, great. All right. So again, my name is Gopal Patel. I am a board certified dermatologist and co-owner of Aesthetic Dermatology, which is a medical dermatology and aesthetic practice in Media and Paoli, Pennsylvania, near the Philadelphia suburbs. I'm also a secretary for the Pennsylvania Academy of Dermatology. In my office, we employ five dermatologists, two physician assistants, and two estheticians currently in our practice, and we do medical and cosmetic dermatology. So thank you for this opportunity to kind of give the dermatologist perspective on the cosmetology and aesthetic law and how it's certainly defined in the state regulations as it is today. So, you know, my perspective as a dermatologist, I see many patients every day for medical and aesthetic concerns, is really centered around patient safety and then provider safety and liability. So I think, you know, one thing as I was rereading, this was, you know, news to me, how the various definitions and responsibilities of a cosmetologist versus esthetician were defined by the state. And, you know, there was a statement that stood out that said particularly that an aesthetics includes, quote, the use of industry standard mechanical and electrical apparatus and appliances. And that to me was, and to my colleagues in dermatology, a pretty vague comment. And I think that's where we have a great opportunity to narrow down what should or maybe should not be more precisely within the purview of an esthetician, particularly one that is not working within a dermatology practice or plastic surgery practice. So our view is, as dermatologists, you know, anything that is done that will either penetrate, heat, or injure the skin really should be in the practice of medicine. And there's, you know, added layers of training that we have to deal with both safety, blood-borne pathogens, as well as really misdiagnosis. and then lastly follow-up care and dealing with complications as dermatologists. So you know penetration heat and injury of the skin is really kind of a broad way to distinguish the different procedures. You know in our office and you know I personally have seen a wide variety of complications of things that occur both in the spa setting and then of course in the med spa setting which you know med spa technically has a medical director but realistically that is so loosely defined in the state, it's oftentimes somebody who's remotely working and doesn't actually have training in the field or is ever on site to train or supervise the esthetician. So in the case of a very common procedure like microneedling, you know, this is a device where there's a pen with small needles that's used to run over the skin and puncture the skin and then injure and break down the skin barrier. There's real risk of both bleeding bruising nerve damage around the eyes And then often what happens is these devices that are sold by the companies are layered with follow lotions and serums to be applied afterwards which now are penetrating through the channels that are created and creating greater risk and sometimes scarring, granulomas, and other complications. Another thing I see often are laser-related burn procedures. burns from laser procedures excuse me there's beyond that the reality is sort of misdiagnosis so somebody a client may go into a spa or med spa saying i'd like to get these xyz brown spots off my face and the technician really has no idea what they're treating but may just do a pass or two with such and such device and you might miss a cancer diagnosis you might be spending a lot of money treating something that would never have responded to that service, and there's just a lack of training. So again, something that's intended to penetrate heat or injure the skin, even with the intent of removing pigment, et cetera, should really be in the purview of a medical practice in our view. Injectables, I mean, a little bit outside, obviously, the scope of estheticians, but as to my point about, you know, med spas and lack of oversight, we see complications from neurotoxins, cosmetic fillers in our office. Really what we find is, you know, someone may have a spa and then they'll own this facility and kind of have once or twice a month, an injector will come in, do a treatment, and that person's gone. So numerous occasions I've seen a patient have the injectable service and then come to my door saying, oh, you know, I had this complication, I couldn't get a hold of anybody at the spa, and, you know, we're dealing with either, you know, nerve-related injury, muscle weakness, sometimes scarring, and having to dissolve a product. So that's another important area where we really need to kind of narrow what should or should not be done. And then furthermore, as it pertains to a med spa. Dermaplaning was brought up, and, you know, I would agree that, you know, dermaplaning, again, is a blade device, and then there is a risk of absolutely cutting the skin. This is a scalpel blade, a 10R blade that's used to scrape over the skin, and you now are exposing to blood-borne pathogens as well as injuring the patient but injuring yourself. And as such, you know, our view would be this is really appropriate for a medical practice and shouldn't really be a standalone procedure unsupervised. So essentially, to summarize, I think that, you know, my understanding is the cosmetology law hasn't had a meaningful update since the early 1900s. So obviously it's great that you guys have come together to kind of talk about what can we bring this into modern standards. And I think that not only in defining this law better would be not just what is allowed, but really what should not be allowed and what really is within the jurisdiction of a medical practice. And we 100 percent on-site supervision of dermatologists and plastic surgeons for many of these treatments, though, of course, there are other things. such as facial massage, application of lotions, hair removal by tweezers, et cetera, that are well within the jurisdiction of an esthetician or cosmetologist. So, yeah, happy to answer any questions, and thanks again for this opportunity.
Thank you. We have another testifier, salon owner, Eileen Titai, if she's with us.
Oh. Hello, how are you? Thank you. Can you hear me? Thank you yes Good morning Chairman Burns Chairman Emmerich and members of the committee My name is Eileen Tatey and I am the owner of Hairway to Beauty in Northeast Philadelphia I have three points I'm bringing up today. First, I want to thank Mr. Johnson for bringing this one up because this is my main focus for today. I present to you in the hope today that House Bill 644 will be passed into law. Well, my biggest issue with being a salon owner is not being allowed to do booth rental in my small business. Barbers have been able to do this for quite some time, as was stated, which I find very sexist, as are generally men doing barbering. But on top of that, this wasn't brought up yet. We now have salon suites that have come into Pennsylvania, which is pretty much allowing glorified booth rental. If the committee is not familiar with the salon suite, they are corporations that have been here for a few years now. They're a big building. They have rooms and stylists rent the room. So it's glorified booth rental. I believe the difference is in that setting, each stylist has to have their own owner's license. We're in a salon like mine. I have the license for the building. But I can't see if I would put up a partition around a chair. There's my room to rent a booth. So that that that's my point with that. It was a real slap in the face when I first heard about these salon suites. This is hurting my business as I do have stylists coming in asking to do booth rental. And I've had to turn them away because of I'm following the law. I know. And I mentioned the part about the licenses. Business is not good for myself and a lot of salons anyway, especially since COVID. This has been a big detriment to my bottom line. We need to even up the playing field with the bigger salons. And this would be a step in the right direction passing that bill. Another issue that could be looked into is education for future cosmetologists. One of my employees who was in school back in 2022 had no teacher for a few months. in the school they went to, and they still had to pay to attend. From what she told me, the students were sitting in a room sometimes with no teacher, nothing to do. And I have found that young stylists coming in, they need a lot more education that I received when I went to school. We're never done learning, but when you're a student, you should be learning the basic concepts of hair. There could be a lack of teachers. I'm not sure about that. So maybe there could be a program to encourage people to teach in a cosmetology school. Perhaps it's financial, socioeconomic. Maybe if they don't have a program already, that's my suggestion. And lastly, I would like to bring up perhaps the board could go back to doing the surveys. They would ask stylists what things on the state board of cosmetology test we would change or update. I don't remember getting one for quite some time, and I thought it was a great idea to help them see what's really going on in salons and what needs to be focused on in School of Cosmetology. Thank you. It was a great honor to get to speak in front of the committee, and I hope my remarks have been helpful in making the hair industry stronger. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony Before we get to the questions Ms Dunn if you like to introduce yourself Yes good morning My name is Debbie Dunn and my husband and I own the Lancaster School of Cosmetology and Therapeutic Bodywork
I just have a few comments on some of this aspect from a school standpoint and not necessarily a salon owner. But, you know, one of the things, first of all, the Cosmetology Compact is wonderful. It is absolutely wonderful. And we could talk more about that after the training and in the training and education space. But when you're talking about change of location, as I believe Aaron said, it would be wonderful if a school could have the same latitude. It would also be wonderful if schools could have latitude in adding an additional location. Right now, only square footage, additional square footage attached to the current building is permitted. But additional location in that would also be wonderful if that's something that could be looked at. When you're talking about dermaplaning, 300 hours is quick. It's quite quick to try to teach that aspect. And insurance in a school is a little bit different than an insurance in a salon. Our professional liability insurance right now won't even allow us to teach eyelash perming because the solution is so close to the eye. Not sure school could even get insurance to cover dermaplaning with that aspect, on those aspects. There's been a lot of discussion about booth rental. I've been doing this a long time. The biggest issue with booth renting has always been consumer safety. Okay, you have somebody renting a booth. Okay, they have a problem. Who are they complaining to? Who's the complainant? Who's the insurance responsible for? If they want to sue, who are they suing? And nobody has been able to answer those questions. And that's been a little, you know, from the standpoint of booth rental, certainly that's important. What Aaron has mentioned from an education standpoint, schools are being nailed by the federal government right now for students not reporting all of their income to the IRS. Booth rental does lean toward, as do salon suites at times, lean toward cash paying with those aspects. And while mobile units do sound like a great idea, right now in the law, stylists, they have the ability to be mobile. All they have to do is somebody has to set the appointment through the salon and they can go to somebody's home. They can go to another location. And you're correct. The whole mobile unit isn't in like an RV or something, but there is that possibility. And again, as Aaron said, with the inspections, that can certainly be a concern. And I'll leave it there until we get to the next phase. Thank you very much. I do appreciate your time. And thank you so much for allowing me to do this virtually. It was really important.
Well, thank you. We've also been joined by Representative Mahaffey. Now I'm going to turn it over to questions from the members. Representative Mako.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. If you'll indulge me, I have two quick questions. First one is talking about the cosmetology compact real quick. Where are we at for Mr. Johnson? and where are we at on that in regards to the other states?
Thank you for the question, Representative. So we're currently, operationally, we're working on the requirements to be ready for when that legislation becomes effective. So that includes preparing the PAL systems That includes preparing our staff to be able to adjust workflows around those requirements. But as you're aware, there's still some structural things that need to happen with the compact itself that have less to do really with the General Assembly and more to do with the organization itself. So we are doing everything we can to be ready on day one. and we're working to honor that pledge to this committee that we'll be ready on day one.
Do you have a timeline that you're looking at for that?
I don't only because I don't know what the effective date of the legislation will be. So depending on when it gets to the governor's desk, we want to be ready for that 60. I'm not sure if it's 60 or 180 days what the effective date would look like, but I know that we're working with our vendor to make sure that the palace is set up to honor the compact. And then just switching gears right now, going back to the HB 644, which is the booth rentals, which is my legislation.
I appreciate Eileen speaking out on that about the systemic inequity of the barbers being able to do booth rentals as cosmetologists can't. And I think, Ms. Dunn, you were talking about lawsuits and all that and where does that fall. I think, I guess, along the lines of cosmetologists, I would just say that it would probably mirror whatever barbers do. So my question for you, Mr. Johnson, is do you think we need to just prohibit the cosmetology language saying that they can't do booth rentals? Or do you think we need some kind of framework to some kind of structure? Should we just get rid of it or is there need a structure and legislation on that?
So I would say we'd be happy to work with your office to dig into the weeds with regard to what the language looks like. But I don't want to I would I would hate to hold us to some to some standard at this point in time about what that that language would look like exactly. But I agree with you. I mean, it's there is a there is a structure in place within the Barber Examiner's Law that the the that BPOA and BEI have been successfully managing over a period of years. So we would love to have that conversation with regard to making it work with respect to the cosmetology law. And just one last little aspect of the prohibition of booth rentals for cosmetologists. It's been brought up a number of times of the cosmetologists or barbers not submitting their tips. I would just think that that's not a good enough argument for them not to be able to have their own booth rentals at the end of the day for the legislation to move forward. But, Mr. Johnson, we'll talk later and hash out whatever you guys think. But as of right now, 644, I think, should move forward, and if we can, on the prohibition. Happy to do so, Representative.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We been joined by Representative Shuren and Representative Marcel in person here We have another question from Representative Rivera Thank you for your testimony I just want to make sure that I grasping the testimony as I hear it. I'm hearing Dr. Patel and I'm hearing I think Debbie Dunn in Lancaster. Thanks for representing Lancaster Debbie Dunn. I'm hearing that neither of you is really in favor of dermaplaning being involved in the the curriculum as you currently experience it. Am I getting the right impression from both entities?
For me, yeah. For me also, yes.
Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Another question from Representative Marcel.
Thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate your testimony. I had two questions that are related. So I know that we had one of our testifiers online talking about how they're from a booth rental perspective or maybe it's other things where in cosmetology it's one way and for salons and then for barbers shops it's another. And obviously, I recognize that there are some differences between them. But I was wondering, are there some areas relating to training, things outside of the booth rental that maybe that are OK in the barber kind of regulatory area or in our law that we could maybe apply? Like just to help open up, make it a little bit easier for our salons, for people who are trying to get into that profession. So I'm just wondering if there were any things just off the top of your head that any of you could mention. Maybe it's a bill now, maybe it isn't, but just ideas for how we could apply and make it easier for the people that want to be working in this industry.
Representative, I will just jump in and take a moment to give you a shout out for your apprenticeship bill. And with respect to providing alternative pathways, I think from the department's perspective, that is one such way that we can both encourage workforce development, but also ensure that public health and safety is being prioritized. because I believe in your bill you have a requirement that there be a certain amount of experience for a licensee to be able to offer that apprenticeship. So those are the types of creative pathways and legislation that would help ensure that the profession stays compliant, but also encourages opportunities for those who've traditionally not had the opportunity.
Thank you. I think one thing that – oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to ask if anyone online had any comments. Thank you. I think that one thing, if booth rental is going to move forward, I think it'd be absolutely important that there has to be something developed between the owner of the salon and who's renting the booth. It is quite loose when it comes to barber. They can walk in, they can rent a chair, boom, they're done. I would think if there are guidelines that the owner must follow in a cosmetology salon before they would rent however you want to call it booth rental share rental or whatever it might be I think that would be paramount to consumer safety and several of the other aspects that we have concerns about Not really you know I mean I understand tipping might not be a large enough issue It certainly is if a majority of the cosmetology schools end up closing in this state because everybody doesn't report tips. But leaving that one aside, I think the importance for consumer safety is what the agreement would look like between the owner and the booth runner. Thank you.
Can I comment on that?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah, as a salon owner, well, how about, I guess they have to look at how did the salon suites get to be permitted to do it? Because they're stylists doing booth rental in a bigger building. Now granted it's a big corporation, so maybe they found a loophole with the state board. I don't know. I know I'm insured. I don't know how they do it in Florida. Most states do booth rental, so maybe look at what the other states do. That would be my suggestion. Sometimes if you look to someone else and all the other states that do booth rental for Cosmetology, see what they do. But again, you're letting a big corporation do it, and I can't. But that's just my suggestion.
Thank you. Thank you so much. And then my follow-up question, and I wanted to thank you for all of your commentary and bringing up the bill that would create an apprenticeship program, essentially. And the committee actually did vote that bill out unanimously, which I appreciate the chairman bringing it up for consideration earlier this year. But essentially, it just would allow an owner who has been in business for 10 years to be able to count as an instructor. And I know that I've had some conversations with some of the schools to see if there's a way to kind of like layer in what they're doing so that because at the end of the day, everyone's taking the same exam to get their license. And so trying to make sure that the school, maybe the schools can be like involved with it, but we're opening up more options. I worked on that bill actually because of a young lady in Bucks County who the salon owner and her came to me because of a license issue, which I think I spoke to a couple of you about. But the point is, is like they're just trying to find solutions for how we can get people who want to be cosmetologists into the profession. It shouldn't be that this young lady, it took her like five extra years because she didn't have the resources to keep going to school. Then she had to stop and start and some of the credits didn't end up counting. So she had to start again. And and I want to make sure we do it the right way. I certainly don't believe in, you know, completely upending the industry. But I do think with the mention that our laws haven't been updated in a long time, Like there are a lot of industries in this state that we have done updates for. And so I don't understand why we wouldn't look at. So it doesn't have to be my bill necessarily. But like, what are some ways that we can help the people in these industries? Because hearing this young lady who's all she wants to do is get her cosmetology license, working three jobs, like trying to just make ends meet as a 20 year old young lady. It shouldn't be that hard to get into a profession you're interested in. And thankfully she did finish her school. She now has her license, but I just, I don't know why we have such barriers for people who wanna work. They wanna be a part of our communities. And again I don have all the answers but I just appreciate that we could have this hearing today Thank you Mr Chairman for bringing all these people together to help us to get to a better place because I do think there so much work for us to do to help the people of Pennsylvania
And this is, I think, where it starts.
So just thank you very much.
Well said. Chairman Emmerich has been caught up in another meeting, So we're going to allow Nicole to ask some questions that hopefully you can answer so that we can get some clarification. Thank you, Chairman. The first two questions are for Department of State Deputy Secretary or Director Morris that I'm not sure who wants to answer.
Can you just give us a brief overview of the training that the BEI inspectors typically get before they go out and inspect these facilities? I know some of the professions like pharmacy and I think it's funeral directors, they either worked in the industry themselves or they have experience in the industry. And I'm just curious if the cosmetology inspectors are, you know, do they follow that same pathway or what kind of specific training do they get prior to going out to some of these small businesses and inspecting them? I appreciate the question. About six years ago, my former director, Director Michael Rosenberry, said to us, let's professionalize this bureau. And so we painstakingly made sure that we started putting the work in to make sure exactly what you're talking about happened, right? We changed our mission statement to reflect professionalism and accountability. We changed the training program and regimen. We elicited the support of OCC to help us with the training. We developed a field training unit, so the inspectors will go through an eight-week training regimen prior to going out in the field, in addition to the training that's offered by prosecution. So there's been a heavy focus on the training to professionalize the group and to make sure that we're falling within compliance ourselves. You know, if we're doing, you heard over 29,000 inspections, and in 2025 we only resulted in seven complaints that were made against inspectors out of 29,000, that's less than 0.024%. So I believe we're on the right track, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you. And my second question, so Deputy Secretary Johnson, in your comments, you had said that, you know, certain times the reason for a facility not passing an inspection is because their services are being offered or performed outside of the cosmetology practice. Would you be able to give committee members just an example of a couple of those services that are typically the top ones that the salons get dinged?
Sure. Dermaplaning. Dermabrasion
Sure, thank you
Microneedling, dermaplaning are the big two, but I mean the list it could be any one of those any one of those procedures that is not defined in the cosmetology law could be a reason for failing so like we said dermaplaning, microneedling dermabrasion dermabrasion tattooing, piercing any one of those not just those procedures but there are also instruments to perform those procedures that are within the salon area. Those could be cause for failure as well, because it's impermissible to even have those instruments in possession of a licensee or within the licensed salon.
Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like me to repeat that? Okay. And then my last question is actually relating to the dermaplaning. I'm not quite sure who would want to jump in here and answer this one. But so do you believe that dermaplaning could be done in a salon setting with appropriate training and oversight that could be implemented?
Or do you believe that you don't see a pathway forward for dermaplaning to be offered and performed safely in a salon setting? Well, I guess my comment, you know, my bias would be that it should be in a medical practice setting because of the nature of the sharps involved in that. I can't speak to, you know, what kind of safety protocols. I don't have inside knowledge on how a salon is set up in terms of, like, OSHA, what type of inspections are done there, and then just handling sharps, sharps injury training. So for those reasons, you know, my view is within my medical practice, yes, we have estheticians. But we are on-site physically supervising training, and we are medically liable for anything that happens as the MDs. Quick comment.
I said this earlier, but I just want to repeat it. The current esthetician license is 300 hours, and I talked to a number of schools on that question you asked particularly,
and they all said the current 300 hours are already jam-packed with instruction on different things. So to add dermaplaning in would require either additional hours or some give somewhere. So thank you.
I'd like to thank you for your testimony. It was very informative and, you know, appreciate you coming in to enlighten us. So thank you. And now we'll move on to panel two, if you could join us in the front. Thank you.
Thank you.
the panelists. We'll start with the people in person, then we'll move to the members virtually, and our first testifier then will be, I sorry I keep saying testifier our first presenter will be Leslie Rost So if you want to go ahead Oh okay So I guess Are you wanting me to go Okay I wasn sure if we were doing in person first or not So my name is Leslie Rosty I come to really more from a national perspective I work across all of the states My background actually is in nursing infection control nursing to be specific So I came to this industry as a subject matter expert
expert in infection control. So in my written testimony, you'll see I've addressed some of the infection control questions because I can't not do it. It's not in my nature. But I have written content for both Pivot Point and Milady, most of their science content in the past. So I'm familiar with the health and public safety aspect. That was my primary entry into this industry. Since that time, I now have two roles. I am, I work for the PBA, the professional beauty industry, as their I'm the Executive Director of State Relations and Policy Development. So doing these types of things, reviewing people's statutes, people's rules, giving feedback on what is being seen in other states is one of my common rules. But I'm also the Executive Director of the Cosmetology Compact Commission. So I'm sad to see that your one member who had compact questions is gone, because if you have compact questions, I can certainly answer those. I'm just I've given you some written testimony about what is going on around states. I can answer questions specific to that, but I thought I would give a few comments on some of the things that were specifically brought to light in the previous testimony. One of them was the aesthetics hours, 300 hours. That is very low across the nation. The majority of states, 29 states, sit at 600 hours. So that puts Pennsylvania in the third lowest number of hours for aesthetics training. So should you want to add other things, that may be a consideration. Does it just need to be more hours to be able to do that while we're on the topic of hours? Because that seems to come up in all of these conversations. And it's all very much tied together right now. You've heard people talking about no tax on tips, what might happen to schools. And I sit on two different tasks, national task force, around how to create some standardization in this industry. because the variation from state to state is incredible. You have schools or states that require a thousand hours for cosmetology and that's seven states and you have three states that require 1800 hours and there's this huge variation. I will say that in the conversations at the national level it appears that 1200 or 1250 is where most of the national conversations seem to feel like that is a good recommendation and you said at 1200 so you're probably right in the sweet spot when it comes to cosmetology but probably not so much when it comes to aesthetics i will also answer the question i have i can answer questions around tip tax and gainful employment and what might happen to the schools those are things i work on but i'm not sure that that's the topic of this conversation i will answer the question for the member that is not here anymore and that is the timeline around the compact arizona was the first state to go live with the Cosmetology Compact. They went live on the 10th of September. What that means for Pennsylvania is that Arizona licensees can come that have a multi-state license actually can come and work in Pennsylvania now. And Pennsylvania, we're working with your agency, your regulatory agency to get testing started. The effective date of your law is the 27th, I believe, of July for 20 and 2027 the 26th or 27th It seems like you guys will be ready to go on that day um for and that means for you to begin issuing licenses multi licenses in the state of pennsylvania so i'm just going to make myself open for comments i gave you a lot of them for written information so um if there are any questions or comments i'm happy to answer them
thank you
Thank you.
Thank you. Rachel, I'm so sorry.
Can you turn your microphone on?
Yes. Thank you. Okay.
For many people, particularly parents balancing work in childcare or people in rural areas, the cost and time commitment can put this career out of reach. And like Representative Marcel mentioned earlier, it just simply shouldn't be this difficult. Under a salon training program, a salon owner could hire someone with potential but with no license and teach them on the job. Participants would first complete a four-hour board-approved sanitation course and work under licensed supervision and registered, licensed, and inspected salons. Iowa enacted a version of this model in 2025. Imagine a salon owner who's struggling to hire and wants to teach a promising employee to cut hair. This would let that employee build skills and bring home a paycheck while the owner grows their business. Workers could pursue a license or keep earning under supervision depending on what fits their lives School would remain an option but training should not be one Importantly the people these programs serve are generally not potential students. They're people for whom school would never be a realistic option. And while my remarks today centered on cosmetology because of the focus of today's meeting, this training should apply to barbers as well. We also have evidence that demanding more schooling does not necessarily make services safer. Our clean cut study compared thousands of health inspections of nail salons and barber shops across four states. Businesses facing lighter licensing requirements or no individual licensing requirement were just as clean and safe as those facing high requirements. The need to get and keep customers is reason enough for most barber shops and beauty salons to provide safe, clean services, whether their workers spent thousands of hours in school or zero. The packet of information we provided today includes a one-pager of our reform recommendations, Pennsylvania Cosmetology School cost and wage data, a map showing districts with one or fewer schools, and our research reports. It also includes a story from a Pennsylvania beauty professional who supports these changes and stands to benefit greatly from them. bottom line today here is that for your constituents these changes could mean a new source of family income a job at a local salon or the chance to open a business thank you for your time and for considering these recommendations and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you
before I get in the comments I was gonna make I just have a quick question of Rachel if I can did you say 17% graduation rate is that what you I'll When Debbie talks, she knows this probably better than I do, but I know our creditors actually require graduation rates that are much, much higher than that. So I'll let Debbie speak on the specific numbers, but I know our schools are graduating well, well above 17%, so I do question that stat. But that said, so what I want to talk about, though, is the hours, going back to that issue. A couple people mentioned hours. I just did a quick national research of hours. As Leslie mentioned, the low end nationally is 1,000 hours for cosmetology. The high end is – it was 2,000. I think some states just modified it to 1,800. So that's kind of the range we're talking about in terms of states nationally. The national median of all states is 1,500 hours. Pennsylvania is currently the 12th lowest in the country for hours, sitting at 1,250. And I know there's been discussion in the past of where do we sit compared to our bordering states. So New York and New Jersey are lower than us. Those two states have, I believe, 1,000, I think 1,200 hours respectively. And then our other bordering states, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, are at 1,500 hours, and West Virginia is at 1,800 hours. So I just want to give that context as we discuss ours. Last thing I just want to comment on because it's been talked about. This is not in my formal notes, but because it's been raised a few times. We talked earlier about booth rental in the schools and earnings accountability. I just want to make sure everyone understands exactly what we're talking about here for context. The Federal U.S. Department of Education has a new rule in place. This is for all higher ed, not just cosmetology schools, all higher ed that basically your students have to pass an earnings metric. And basically if your students don't pass that earnings metric in two out of three years, the students in that school lose all access to federal student aid. So it's a huge issue for schools. And we see because of the nature of cosmetology, not just in Pennsylvania but across the country, it's a heavily tip-based industry. A lot of it's done in cash. A lot of it's done in services off the books. under the table. Our graduates, we know, are making much more money than per se a report of the federal government. So we're trying to do everything we can to make sure Whether it's in a salon setting, whether it's in a booth setting, a chair, whatever it is that we're getting controls on earnings, reportings, because if we don't, two, three years from now, we could see a lot of cosmetology schools, students lose financial aid and potentially go out of business. So I just wanted to kind of talk about that because it is a very, very significant issue for the cosmetology sector. And whether we're talking about booth rental or any other issues, I just want to make sure everyone fully understands that rule. So I'll stop there.
Thank you. Ms. Dunn?
Thank you. I will tell you, depending on who your accreditor is, most accreditors require at least a 60 percent completion rate. If you fall below that, you lose accreditation. So I'm not exactly sure. I didn't. We missed the first part of Ms. Gonzalez's information. But Aaron, I believe, heard 70 percent. Our particular school right here as a 91 percent completion rate. you'll find that most schools do, in fact, work very, very hard to achieve that. I know that one of the things when we're talking about struggling to hire, they're struggling to hire well-trained people. Going back to apprenticeships, the thing that concerns me about apprenticeships, and first of all, I'm an educator. I'm not a cosmetologist. I'm not an esthetician. Both my husband and I are educators. He's been a corporate trainer also. So apprenticeships, the things that concern us, they need to run their salons. They absolutely have to run their salons to spend the time teaching. And actually teaching is a concern, even if they have 10 years of experience. We've seen people with more experience than that come in here to take our teacher program. And I need to honestly say some of them I would never hire because they can't take what they know and adapt it to somebody that they're trying to teach. So if there's another way, I mean, right now they have to be a teacher. They have to have license as a teacher. And I think for apprenticeship, that does need to stay put because it is so important with that. The hour discussion, you know, I look at everything that goes into this and it was it's so interesting to me as somebody that used to teach high school English. When I look at what these students need to learn, especially those coming from high school, I mean, trying to teach them math again and chemistry again, diseases of the skin, diseases of scalp, diseases of the nail. I mean, there is so much science information in this and math that, I mean, if you go too low, I'm just not sure where the consumer safety is. And our 1,250 hours seems to serve us well. I certainly would not think that we would ever need to go above 1,250 because it does a great job of preparing our students for the workforce. So I think that that is important. And one other thing, because, you know, people are talking about, you know, having more discussions, getting together many, many years ago. And Aaron might be able to determine exactly when this happened. But when Mr. Johnson, when Kalanji Johnson was in a specific, can't remember what I know is still with the Department of State. We had the most amazing stakeholders group. We would bring stakeholders together from salons, from all aspects. every time we needed when we needed to discuss something major whether it be the law or regulation we would all come together and it was such an effective group and there's so much discussion here i think it would be wonderful if we could use the stakeholders that exist around this state um there are so many excellent ones um from all aspects to really move forward with some of these uh particular issues and um i know he was really i mean kalanji did a great job of pulling that group together before And it would be wonderful to see that again And I think that is it Unless I missed something Aaron
Thank you. I have a comment question. Twice now you've referenced the wage reporting or earnings reporting of salon owners and workers. I'm sure the federal government and the state have an interest in that as well to get it accurately reported. What recommendations do you have that is not being done right now to ensure that there's accurate reporting?
So one thing is the federal government has done is done the no tax on tips law at the federal level. They think that will help solve this. We're a little, we're not sure how much that's going to solve or not. It certainly has a little extra incentive for people to report income. But part of that issue, though, it's only a two-year sunset in that federal law. So we think permanently authorizing that and then through time having the populations in that industry know for sure their taxes are not being tipped. In a long run, that could help. So that could be one thing. Beyond that, I mean, I probably would defer Department of State. I don't think I have the answer for you in terms of what kind of controls must be put in the salons. But certainly, back to the booth rental, anything that, you know, when you moving it into an individual operation where they have full control over what's being reported or not, that does concern us. So, and I can follow up with Representative Mako, but I know he had asked the question of Kalanji about, you know, can we work on a structure, putting a structure in if we do move to Booth Rental? I'd be happy to sit down and see if we can figure that out, because, you know, certainly not just for our end, because we have a concern at the school end, because our students' earnings in the way they're being reported, but as you said, the state government, you're losing revenue. We all know it's happening. So I think getting controls of that would be very important. But do I have the silver bullet right now? I can recommend no, but we'd be happy to look into it. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? If I may also add.
Oh, sure. Go ahead. I was just, I'm sorry. I was just going to jump in because one other ways that the way our graduates file what they put on their IRS has also affected students in this state that go to shorter-term programs, like 300-hour programs that are not currently Pell eligible. Well, Workforce Pell is new, and we've pretty much clearly been told by the state that those short-term programs will not be Pell eligible because they just don't make enough money. It's because that's what they report on the IRS. So the way they report on the IRS is a challenge. And Aaron's right. There is no silver bullet. Because I am an educator, it is not a simple thing to reteach what somebody's been doing for years, and this is what you need to do now. I mean, I'm not sure. I mean, I absolutely know. My own, like, stepdaughters and, you know, my own grandchildren, I couldn't look at them and say, excuse me, this is like where you need to go to work, how you get paid, how much you're going to get paid, and what you're going to report on your IRS. So while we are looking for other options, it not only affects the federal level, it already affected those short-term programs on the state level. It is large. I mean, all we're asking is for it to be not a death knell, but let us report it. I mean, the wages our students make are already being reported. Thank you.
We have another question from Nicole.
Thank you Chairman This might be for Aaron or Debbie I not sure Can you just give a quick overview of the exam for cosmetology students Do we still do the practical exam or did we get rid of the practical exam a couple of years ago I going to defer to Debbie but yes you did get rid of it We got rid of it Okay that what I thought I just wanted to confirm if you could briefly talk about the exam piece and if you feel that we should bring back the practical exam for students
Debbie, do you want to answer that one?
Yes, I will. So when they did away with the practical exam, one of the things that they did is they included what they call practical questions in the exam. So, for instance, instead of just, you know, questions that directly relate to the law and some of the very specific things, they put in practical questions such as, like, what would the formula be for such and such and such and such? The only way I would ever suggest bringing back one of the biggest reasons that the practical was done away with, the new company that was hired by the state had everything be mocked. Everything was mocked. They used food coloring to pretend they were doing hair coloring. They used Vaseline to pretend they were waxing. It was pretty odd. I mean, from an educator standpoint, it was just odd. What happened, I believe, with most schools, I know it certainly happened here, is when it went just to the physical, I'm sorry, just the written exam on the computer, we do our own final practicals here. They can't pass the final practical, which is called real-life scenario. They don't graduate. Or until they can pass it, they're just going to stay here. But, again, the only way the practical come back is if they stop the pretending, because that's just pretty much what it was, pretending. They weren't even allowed to use a live model anymore.
I have a comment on this.
That's all right?
Go ahead.
Can you guys hear me?
Oh, okay.
I will say in working in a lot of the states, one of the problems with the practical exam is exactly what Debbie talked about, which is I come from the health and safety standpoint. And one of the things I try to remind people all of the time is the responsibility of the state is to make sure you are safe. So that should be the primary responsibility of that exam, not the only responsibility, but to ensure you're safe. And on the practical exams, one of the things that they routinely do is they do not demonstrate things like disinfection. They just have a bag that says to disinfect. They don't actually have to mix the disinfectant. Talk about, you know, contact time. They don't have to demonstrate that they know one of the primary concepts of safety. They have to do a two-inch haircut. And I don't really care if you can do a two-inch haircut. I care if you're doing a two-inch haircut safely. So I think the practical exam might have demonstrated some skill sets, but that's not the responsibility. the state primary responsibility is not being upheld, in my opinion, through most practical exams.
So I agree with Debbie on exactly that piece. Thank you.
Is there another question online?
I just wanted to chime in as a salon owner. I was shocked when I heard there was no more practical exam. Debbie, thank you for the explanation. I did not know about the mock part. I can say from a hiring standpoint, that's what I'm saying, that my shampoo assistant cannot seem to pass the test on the written test. It is a hurdle with the scientific things, but they can do it. So we need I think they need to go back to the real practical not a mock Thank you Debbie but I seeing very you know your school that great They do it But other schools I don think they doing enough practical before they take the test So thank you for that
Thank you. Carrie also has another question.
Hi, thank you. Rachel, I just wondered, and forgive me because I should probably know our apprenticeship program more deeply, but could you talk about the differences of what you're recommending versus what Pennsylvania's existing apprenticeship pathway, like what would be the primary differences? Sure. So at least for cosmetologists right now, the current requirements
make apprenticeship functionally really difficult for people to carry out in a salon setting. So you have to have the instructor present, but also two other licensed cosmetologists in the salon at the same time. So you can imagine how, you know, for a small salon, that would be incredibly difficult to pull off. So the main differences are that, right, no clear set requirements for supervisors other than just being licensed and experienced and being willing to take on a trainee. That's what Iowa passed and people are using it. And at least the anecdotal evidence we have is that it's going really well and people are able to access a level of flexibility that you just can't in a traditional apprenticeship program. And really what the supervised services model aims to do is to provide an alternative pathway, not a replacement, but just an alternative for people who are coming in with varying levels of experience. So, you know, you can imagine someone who is an immigrant and they've had experience in another country and maybe they have no way of documenting that experience or someone who's a military spouse who's only somewhere temporarily. What this program allows them to do is to work under supervision indefinitely. They're still regulated and safe. They take a sanitation course. The salon is inspected and customers are notified that they are a trainee. But at the end of the day, they're able to get to work really quickly and smoothly. So you could be...
May I just stop?
Oh, I apologize.
No, could I just ask a real quick follow-up just so I understand. So in that model, you could be a first-year licensed cosmetologist and training someone else?
That would depend on what the state decided to pass and the specifics of the legislation. But it is possible, yes, that someone who is licensed and has been given that credential by the state and who is still inspected by the board is able to supervise someone in training.
Is there a comment online?
Yeah, I would point out that the apprenticeship model, however, that is in Iowa, what they're talking about, apprenticeship should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And there is no end point. You can work indefinitely as an apprentice, which means you're never required to get a license. So I would take that under consideration. If I were to enact that type of a law, I would want to have an end point so that we don't have indefinite unlicensed work. So that's my only consideration.
Could I respond? Yeah, I mean, thank you for the comment. I would say that, yeah, there's an option to include a pathway to licensure under this program. So Iowa did that. after 2,000 hours of experience, you can sit for the State Board, take your exam, and become licensed, and then work independently on your own. But there are people who are interested in, you know, they're pursuing a second career, You know, they're working on the side. They want that flexibility. It's not for everybody, but, you know, enacting a new program like this doesn't mandate that everyone does it. It just creates an alternative pathway for people who really need it. And for some people, this is a good fit.
Debbie, did you have a comment? Yes, I just wanted to comment. For the military now, the licenses are portable. You can even see that on the State Board of Cosmetology site. site. They made them much more portable for military families that are moving from state to state. So that helped a great deal. Certainly the Cosmetology Compact does too. Right now, if somebody comes from another country, one of the biggest challenges is the State Board of Cosmetology does not really permit a lot of, well, first of all, transfer hours can only be so long. You must complete your cosmetology program within five consecutive years. You can have breaks in there, but I'm sorry, four consecutive years. But in doing that out of the country, some of the biggest challenges we seen are just the incredibly different ways of doing things and transferring hours in from out of the country We normally the paperwork is not accepted by the testing company because you would have to submit that with the transfer hours and it's not accepted by the testing company. So those are just two important aspects to fill in with.
Just one more thing on that. I appreciate the comment about the military spouse angle and the portability, but the concept of portability presumes that someone is already licensed and that they've been able to overcome that barrier of getting licensed in the first place, of spending the $17,000-plus dollars the year-plus in school, and that just isn't a reality for everyone. So what this allows is for someone to safely get to work and have that option, no matter their licensure status.
Well, thank you for your remarks today. I do believe we've learned a lot here, And I think there is a way to work with all parties and come up with some solutions for the people of Pennsylvania and the business owners that are concerned about these issues and improve the antiquated laws that we operating under right now So we going to be working on that as a committee This session is coming to an end rather quickly, but in the next sessions, I'm sure this will be a topic that we will take up. So thank you. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. .