CHICAGO — A bill that would have repealed licensing requirements for hair braiders in Illinois died in the final stretch of the legislative session after opponents voiced concerns about how deregulation could impact health, safety and equity for the profession.
The Hair Braiding Opportunity Act, House Bill 3356, would have amended the Barber, Cosmetology, Esthetics, Hair Braiding, and Nail Technology Act of 1985 to strike a 300-hour training requirement, $30 initial licensing fee and $5,000 penalty for practicing without a license for hair braiders.
Members of the Illinois Association of Hair Braiders, or IAOHB, the original advocates behind the 2011 rule that established a special license for braiders, said a repeal would have reversed hard-won strides for the profession.
“When you ‘X’ this license out, you undo the work that Black women have been doing to be recognized in the beauty industry,” said Tamekia Swint, a licensed hair braiding instructor and owner of nonprofit salon Styles 4 Kidz in Oak Park.
The bill needed one final vote of concurrence on proposed amendments to pass after it had unanimous support in the House and the Senate. House bill sponsor Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, said he decided not to bring it to a vote after meeting with members of the IAOHB.
“The bill was actually held to get it right,” Ford said. “They’re organizing, and we’re going to listen.”
The bill’s proponents said hair braiding, as a protective form of hair styling and cultural practice for people of African descent, is widely practiced with or without a license. It’s a skill many people learn from an early age and develop throughout their lives, often making additional training unnecessary for those looking to braid hair professionally.
“We should not be charging or requiring people to go get licensure for something that they already know how to do,” said Sen. Chris Belt, D-Swansea, the Senate sponsor of the bill.
Belt served as co-chair of the Comprehensive Licensing Information to Minimize Barriers, or CLIMB, Task Force, which was established in partnership with the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship, or IJ Clinic, in 2022 to investigate onerous licensing requirements as a barrier to entry for 16 low- to moderate-income occupations.
The task force released a final report of its findings in November 2024, identifying hair braiding as an occupation that could benefit from deregulation.
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“We can show that it’s way too expensive, it’s way too time-consuming, and there’s not necessarily a need for it, because folks practice safely,” said Noah Bazis of the IJ Clinic, who served as project manager for the CLIMB Task Force.
Disciplinary actions for hair braiding by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation are rare, and mostly unrelated to health risks or unsafe practices, Bazis said.
Bazis said cutting red tape would have benefitted the IDFPR by removing the administrative burden and costs of managing licenses for braiders.
“If you have an occupational license category, the fewer people you have involved in that license, the more administrative cost is going to go up, because you’re managing a much, much smaller group,” Bazis said. “It’s a state agency. They only have so many resources.”
The IDFPR received 97,677 license applications for the 16 occupations CLIMB analyzed from 2017 to 2022. Of those applications, hair braiders accounted for just 648, or an average of 108 applications per year.
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Opponents worried, however, that deregulation would lead to increased risk of braiders practicing in ways that are unsafe.
“The integrity of (the industry) is compromised when you allow any and everybody to just be able to do it,” said Ashanti Johnson, a licensed cosmetologist and owner of These Hands Style salon in Oak Lawn.
Johnson is a fourth-generation hair braider who has practiced hair braiding since she was 12 years old. “My grandmother did hair in her kitchen. My great grandmother did hair. My mother did hair…For me it was just always a part of my coming of age,” Johnson said.
Still, Johnson decided to go to cosmetology school when she eventually wanted to pursue a career in hair styling, pivoting from her job as a math teacher of 10 years. The process involved training at an accredited cosmetology school, passing a certification exam and paying a $50 licensing fee to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
She said the decision to go back to school “opened up a wealth of knowledge” and has made her a more successful business owner.
“There’s just a lot that being licensed teaches you about rapport, about business, about hair… I just feel it’s very necessary,” Johnson said. “I use my knowledge that I learned in cosmetology school to do braiding in a healthy way for my clients.”
Bazis said there’s a middle ground when it comes to regulating low- to moderate-income occupations like hair braiding.
“Licensing is not the only way to regulate an occupation. It’s just the most expensive and most involved and most time-consuming way,” Bazis said.
Other options for regulation include certifications or registrations, which are much less costly and burdensome for both the applicant and the IDFPR.
Ford said he is now planning to hold a town hall about the issue with U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, offering proponents and opponents a chance to have their concerns heard. Members of the IAOHB said they hope further discussions will lead to compromise legislation that preserves the integrity of their licenses.
“As professionals, we take this industry very, very seriously,” said IAOHB President TyWanna Patrick. “We don’t want our license to be stripped away like it means nothing.”
Isabella Schoonover is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
