OSA Accomplishments

• This law removes the necessity of a manager-licensed individual on staff at all times allowing salon owners the freedom to choose the best person to run their salons.
• Inspections are now streamlined, and consumer driven with the new requirement of an 800 number and email method for complaints to be posted in salons to facilitate consumer reporting to the Ohio State Board of Cosmetology to investigate complaints.
• Public cosmetology school students will be more job-ready after graduation as this law permits those students to continue practicing in their school clinics until graduation.
• This law also makes simple, common sense changes such as requiring licensees to maintain a license and state issue photo ID instead of an original certificate that needs to be posted on a wall in every salon where services are being performed.
• This law allows registration rather than licensure for boutique services. This includes individuals who want to braid, thread or shampoo hair to enter the profession by registering without paying thousands of dollars for hundreds of hours of training to enter the workforce.
• This law also adds an esthetician and a tanning representative to the Ohio State Board of Cosmetology. Yet another example of how this law ensures that all voices in the industry are heard.

• Promote license for license reciprocity across state lines – that means no more waiting for your licensed professional wanting to work in your salon having to go through the additional time and expense of additional training and taking an exam before becoming licensed to work across state lines.  Specifically, the new law (1) removes the requirement of an applicant taking an exam, and (2) the requirement that the jurisdiction of the original license offers similar reciprocity to Ohio.
• Standardize the minimum amount of initial training to become a licensed professional – For decades the state minimum number of hours has been a ceiling.  For cosmetologists in Ohio today that is 1,500 hours.  Independent research in all 50 states shows that students are do not pass licensure exams with greater frequency, graduate from cosmetology programs, or have a higher earning potential in programs above 1,000 hours.  Successful programs in New York and Massachusetts have been at 1,000 hours of training since the 1940s and most career technical education is around 1,000 hours, including Ohio’s requirement of 1,125 hours.   Setting Ohio’s state required hours at 1,000 hours levels the educational standards for public and private education.  In addition, a 1,000-hour program enables student to complete programs in a shorter amount of time and less student debt in order to enter the job market sooner to begin earning a living and building their reputation and earning potential.
• Requires Registration Only for an Independent Contractor License
  This license does not measure or control anything to do with safety and sanitation and is an unnecessary cost to entrepreneurs.  Registration is cheaper and fits the need to track for financial purposes.
• Provide an apprenticeship program to become licensed – did you know that 18 cosmetology programs closed within the last year?  We need a strong career technical, private and adult training programs across the state.  But, when such programs do not produce a constant workforce pipeline for beauty professionals entering the industry salon owners need an apprenticeship program as an option to locally train individuals to obtain hands on training while getting paid that leads to becoming licensed. The law specifically authorizes the board to establish an apprenticeship program for cosmetologists.  The details would be drafted by the board, but it currently requires a 12-month program with a trainer for a minimum of 1800 hours of on the job training and 200 hours of related instruction in safety and sanitation.

OSA advocated to make changes regarding proper laundering methods to OAC 4713-15-11 such that It is no longer required to use bleach as a proper laundering method for towels.  This will save thousands in replacement towels once finalized!

The Board of Cosmetology issued a Violation Matrix that identifies which laws and rules receive a warning or a fine on the first offense.  Upon review, it was determined that certain violations regarding licensing would be moved from a warning on a first offense to a violation on a first offense. The Board indicated that the majority of these violations have been issued violations following ARC review and Board approval, and continued case-by-case review creates unnecessary delay due to an increased number of these violations. The primary code sections are R.C. 4713.14(B) through (E).  What this means for you as a salon owner is that you and your staff need to ensure that all employees and independent contractors are properly licensed, as well as the locations in which you operate, as a first offense will now result in a fine.

OSA advocated for changes to 4713-15-01 to allow a grace period between clients for sanitation concerns without fear of violation

OSA advocated for changes to 4713-15-10 to require a reasonableness standard for sanitation rather than a strict liability standard

OSA Advocated to have 4713-13-08 rescinded which would have required salon owners to enter into individual contracts with employees and would change the employment relationship from at will employment where one can fire and employee at will to one which gives increased rights to the employee and makes it more difficult to remove the employee from employment.

OSA advocated for changes to 4713-13-07 so that it now properly aligns liability for sanitation to owners for common areas and to licensees for work areas

OSA advocated against a change to OAC 4713-15-03 which would have required metal clipper guards to be submerged in liquid which would have ruined the blades

OSA lobbied to remove shaving as a prohibited act in OAC 4713-1-07(F)(5).

OSA worked to remove the unnecessary and burdensome notary requirement from temporary event permits.

OSA supported member needs by encouraging the Board to adopt a policy on salon application processing that allows for emergency situations to trump the status quo of processing applications in the order in which the application is received.

OSA advocated for changes to 4713-15-11 to reflect that chlorine bleach is not a mandatory requirement for laundering linens in salons and tanning facilities saving members thousands in towel replacement costs.

OSA assisted in educating the Board about new trends in esthetics products and convincing the Board that 4713-8-03(I) should be modified to allow exceptions for trained professionals to the rule requiring chemical peels to have a a pH value not less than three.  This change reflects the modernization of product lines that have differing pH values but still do not penetrate beyond the stratum corneum.

OSA advocated for easier license transfers to Ohio by seeking and obtaining changes to 4713-7-09 allowing for a process to seek a waiver to the testing requirement for obtaining licensure in Ohio from another state.

OSA advocated for changes to 4713-5-21 such that cosmetology instructors may only teach in the cosmetology areas in which the instructor is licensed.  Additionally, Instructors may only provide demonstrations and may not provide services on the public.

OSA advocated to equalize the rules between licensees in licensed facilities.  Salons must have a licensee present at all times that services are offered and we advocated to make changes to 4713-5-17 requiring that school have a licensed instructor on duty during all school hours.