About six years ago, while student-loan payments were really cutting into our family’s budget, I started looking around for ways to save money. We don’t buy Starbucks or eat avocado toast, so we elected to buy some clippers on Amazon and see if my wife could cut my hair. The clippers cost about what 1.5 haircuts would cost. We both watched a couple of hours' worth of YouTube videos, and the rest is history. All these years later, she still cuts my hair. A few years ago, we upgraded the shears and clippers, but we’ve still saved well over $1,000 in that time. 

I recently had an online discussion with a lawmaker who was praising the Legislature’s effort to extend the sunset on the Oklahoma Board of Cosmetology and Barbering. My position is that Oklahoma would be just fine—if not better off—if it didn’t force people to go through 1,500 hours of training before they can earn a living cutting hair. After all, I’ve had bad haircuts from licensed cosmetologists and great haircuts from my wife, who spent a couple of hours learning to cut hair on YouTube. 

Those objecting to sunsetting the cosmetology board suggest that doing so would lead to public safety risks for both workers and clients. But this ignores the many free-market alternatives that remove barriers to productivity while providing accountability to the beauty industry.

The least-restrictive alternative to licensing is simply market competition. It turns out that customers talk to each other—particularly about their bad experiences. Yelp and Google reviews are powerful market alternatives to burdensome regulations. The government need not get involved.

Furthemore, sunsetting the board and deregulating the beauty industry would not prevent professionals from voluntary certification. This would be similar to personal training. In Oklahoma, personal trainers and strength coaches are not required to be licensed. Still, many voluntarily seek certification to become certified strength and conditioning specialists. Some clients, like me, look for Starting Strength certification. Voluntary certification provides the public with information on who has been through certain levels of training without requiring it for everyone. 

Other options that are less restrictive, but still require some government intervention, would be inspections, perhaps from the Oklahoma State Department of Health, or private causes of action for cases of negligence. Inspections, done properly, give the public some protection from unsanitary and unsafe conditions. Anecdotally, inspections appear to happen more in urban areas as inspectors don’t have the time or desire to regularly inspect facilities further from city centers. Private causes of action allow customers to recover damages when they are actually harmed—providing incentives for professionals to exercise due care and perhaps even get bonding/insurance. 

Oklahoma is not unique when it comes to burdensome licensing requirements for cosmetologists. According to the Institute for Justice report, License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing, cosmetology is ranked 5th worst when looking at both the number of states that license an occupation and how burdensome those regulations are. All 50 states and D.C. license cosmetologists, which provides Oklahoma with an opportunity to lead on deregulation. With a one-year extension, the time is now to consider how licensing, not just in the beauty industry, can be re-evaluated and trimmed to help get more Oklahomans to work and cut prices for consumers.