http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/06/22/155596305/episo...
A recent ruling negated the requirement:
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/08/09/158498244/its-n...
So part of the ruling negating the requirement took into consideration that braiding had none of the associated threats to public health and safety. This sounds like things working as they should with regards to overreaching. It's a shame she had to shut down and sue, but the right call was made by the judge.
This person happened to be able to get the Institute for Justice behind her. Most lower class people do not. They simply get squeezed out, and a la Bastiat we never see them.
As for hair dyes, as long as you can buy these things in regular stores, and people generally not getting hurt by them, why would the specific act of putting it in your hair be so dangerous that special government licencing would be required?
It's easy for a bunch of high-achieving people to imagine that these requirements are all great and easy to follow, but there are people in this world who are never going to finish college but still know how to cut hair or cook food or arrange flowers for other people. These people seldom have any significant lobbying voice and when they are choked out you don't see them. You just have some honest person trying to provide honest labor and being told "no" by the nobility.
The people passing these licensure requirements should stop and think really hard about what it's like for a person of little means but with genuine interest to comply with them, and only make the requirements the minimum necessary to satisfy public safety.
I'm okay with that. A hair stylist shouldn't need to complete a cosmetology degree, as in that NPR story. But I would very much* like for them to have taken a test that, at some point, at least asks them if they're aware that you can spread certain diseases if you're not careful about what you do.
But when you set up in business the people paying you money need to know you're not incompetant and that you're not going to cause them chemical burns.
Some of the chemicals - (EG sodium hydroxide) - can be pretty harsh.
(I'm not sure the expensive US method of regulating hair dressers is correct, but it's not totally stupid to regulate people putting sodium hydroxide on your head)
Teenagers have bought sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide and heaven know what other nasty chemicals and plastered it in their own and their friends hair at home for decades, and there's no epidemic of permanent disfigurement from chemical burns (if there was, we'd have people up in arms over these chemicals being sold freely).
In other words, the putative argument for requiring hair dressers licenses is solving a theoretical problem.
Before you start doing business with someone, spend a few seconds evaluating the place. Maybe get a recommendation. If it's busy, that's a lot of other people vouching for it, it's probably at least OK. If it's a repurposed lemonade stand in a back alley, it's probably not (even in a jurisdiction that requires licenses!). It's really just basic common sense.
Yeah, that is some requirement you made up. Just because you want your stylist to be regulated should have no bearing on me. Please keep your laws off my body.
I trust the average person to give safe haircuts 100/100 times.
If the hairdresser is noticeably disturbed or drugged, I'll be moving on. I can leave at any point in the process if I feel I am in danger.
Out of curiosity, I searched for haircut related deaths and they were all customers killing the hairdresser because they were upset about how they looked. Based on the actual danger, I would suggest licensing someone to receive a haircut may be the more effective method of increasing haircut safety.
It's easy to imagine that my kid wants to be a barber and so I could front the money for him to do whatever licensure requirements there are. But it's really hard for some poor person to hop through those same hoops, when all they are trying to do is earn an honest living by offering services for which people will give them money.
A lot of "well what's the harm in requiring hairdressers to take 100 hours of classes" are things which strictly benefit the middle- and upper-class (they aren't really going to notice paying 50 cents more for a haircut), but could really put the screws to the lower-class.
In my experience, it's a very lower-middle or lower socioeconomic status profession. The licensure requirements certainly haven't meant (in my experience) that we're limiting the field to wealthy people.
It probably could be better/easier, but again, given all the chemicals that get combined, the pace at which they work, and the sharp instruments, I don't think 2.5 weeks of fulltime training is unreasonable.
But if you're very lucky, the chemicals will kill the lice, and you'll be too worried about your new disease to be concerned about your hair!
"Hair stylists work with extremely sharp implements extremely close to major blood vessels."
Which implies something more than a knick on the skin that the injured customer then refuses to treat resulting in an infection.