Utah beauty industry needs a makeover, regulators say. Some cosmetologists just want a trim.

Lauren Spatafore was a single mother living in her parent’s basement when she became a licensed cosmetologist in 2014. Less than three years later, she was earning six figures as a hairstylist, and shortly thereafter, bought her own salon — a Lunatic Fringe franchise in Sandy.

Her story isn’t unusual, Spatafore said. Cosmetology is a female-dominated field — 95% of cosmetologists were women in the previous decade, according to a 2014 analysis from NDP Analytics and the California Senate. The profession, Spatafore said, offers women like her a path to financial freedom and security.

Lunatic Fringe — which was co-founded and made popular by “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” cast member Angie Katsanevas — buzzes from the minute it opens at 9 a.m. until the doors close at 7 p.m., fueled by coffee, special caffeinated water on tap and a genuine passion for the work, Spatafore said during an interview at the salon this fall.

Clients settle into neat rows of salon chairs in the studio’s main space where stylists cut, paint and sweep up hair to the steady thrum of pop music. There are separate rooms for washing hair and processing color, tucked away from the bustle of the main space.

It’s Spatafore’s goal to turn the 30 or so stylists at the salon into six-figure earners — or simply to help cosmetologists cut their own path to success.

So she was encouraged, at first, when she learned the Office of Professional Licensure Review (OPLR) was considering whether to “trim some of the fat” from Utah’s cosmetology licensure and make the license — and the cosmetology industry at large — more accessible. But OPLR’s early recommendations, which proposed cutting the required training hours in half, would have “the opposite” effect, Spatafore said.

A bill being drafted this coming legislative session could overhaul the current cosmetology licensing structure. OPLR wants to give the system a full makeover. The state’s role is to regulate safety, said OPLR Director Jeff Shumway, not skill. Right now, the cosmetology license accounts for both.

“There’s a baseline for safety that OPLR put forward, and then there’s the current [structure],” Shumway said. “Folks are kind of negotiating now, where within that middle ground do we want to land?”

Spatafore said she worries too dramatic a makeover, without first replacing the infrastructure to train budding cosmetologists for skill, could “destroy” the industry. Other industry professionals say the proposal is reasonable and overdue.

The Legislature can base the bill on OPLR’s recommendations — but it does not have to do so. Shumway and some industry members alike said they hope the Legislature will balance industry concerns with practicality.

The “bugaboo”

The state’s current cosmetology license is essentially three licenses bundled into one: hair design, esthetics and nail technology. Students can get a “microlicense” in either of the three categories, but those with a cosmetology license can prove to future employers or clients that they’ve been trained to safely work in the pillars of the profession while acquiring at least 1,600 hours of practice under their shears and brushes.

Under OPLR’s proposed system, Utah’s professional cosmetology license would be broken up into distinct categories, each of which would require fewer than 1,600 hours of training but a set number of practice “reps” per skill. Hairstylists could get a hair design license that includes a hair safety permit, plus any combination of “endorsements” — essentially skill-specific microlicenses, Shumway said. Estheticians could get a separate license that includes a skin safety permit and basic skin care endorsement, plus “endorsements” in things like brows/lashes and body hair removal. Nail technicians, laser tattoo removal and electrology — using electricity to remove hair — would all be separate licenses.

“We’re just taking [the existing system] to its natural conclusion,” Shumway said. “We believe that gives more economic choice and freedom to the student or licensee.”

The question legislators will have to reckon with is a bit existential.

Cosmetologists are “kind of the bugaboo of the occupational regulation debate,” Department of Commerce Executive Director Margaret Busse said at a Business and Labor Interim Committee meeting in August. Under the current system, their license doubles as a degree. It proves not only that they have basic safety training but also that they have graduated from an accredited cosmetology school with experience across the profession.

Meaning, Busse said, that the state is “subsidizing” cosmetology education and schools.

And those schools don’t always teach the same skills in the same way, Shumway said.

“There are services within the scope of practice of a cosmetologist currently on which [people] are not trained. Like, they get nothing,” Shumway said. “And there are others where they get a lot. All we’re trying to do is sort of rationalize that, to make sure everyone gets enough reps to be safe on every skill.”

“You’re a jack of all trades and master of nothing, basically,” said Crystal Mitchell, a hairstylist and salon owner who supports OPLR’s proposed changes.

Impacts of licensing options

Some 500 students train at one of the Paul Mitchell School’s four Utah campuses. At the school’s Salt Lake City site, students practice cutting and coloring hair, first on wigs and then on real models, and also learn the do’s and don’ts of chemical peels, facials and nail art. It takes just over a year of studying full time to meet the 1,600-hour licensing requirement, said Ryan Claybaugh, the school’s vice president of advanced education.

Proponents of OPLR’s suggestions have repeatedly said that cosmetology schools have the most to lose under a new system. Shumway said he’s more concerned about the impact on students, as fewer training hours means lower tuition costs.

Some worry that reducing the required licensing hours too much could also impact students’ eligibility to receive financial aid. Roughly 40% of cosmetology students receive federal financial aid in the form of a Pell Grant, Shumway said. Pell Grants are typically given to “undergraduate students who display exceptional financial need and have not earned a bachelor’s, graduate or professional degree,” according to the program website.

Pell Grant recipients need to study for at least 600 hours to be eligible for aid. OPLR took that threshold into account in its recommendations, Shumway said. Cosmetology students would not lose eligibility; they may, however, qualify for less aid.

And there are programs that operate below the Pell threshold, Shumway said. Students, for example, who are seeking only a license as nail technicians and not as cosmetologists don’t qualify.

Overall, Shumway said, OPLR’s proposal is to make the license less expensive.

“We’re just trying to give options,” he said. “Microlicenses [are] a much cheaper and faster option to a lot of folks.”

And while schools, like his, Claybaugh said, will take a hit on tuition if hours drop, students will also suffer.

“At the end of the day, I’m a school, I have set expenses,” he said. “But I’m more focused on the competency of our students. I’d imagine a lot of schools will get out of the business because they’re not going to put out a good product. We didn’t start schools just to teach safety.”

Claybaugh said he recognizes the existential and statutory calculations the state is making.

But, like Spatafore, he also understands that this is the way the system works in today’s environment. Schools could create their own degree or certificate program, but Paul Mitchell’s current accreditor only credits programs that lead to licensure.

OPLR’s early proposals would require a system overhaul. Such big change “doesn’t happen overnight,” Claybugh said. “Give us two to three years to adjust.”

Lawmakers to decide next year

In August, a sea of black filled a committee hearing room at the Utah Capitol.

Dozens of cosmetologists similarly dressed in the trade’s unofficial uniform color packed a Business and Labor Interim Committee meeting to learn about OPLR’s proposal to the Legislature. Spatafore was among them.

But a special session called by the Legislature to rush through proposed amendments to Utah’s Constitution trimmed that hearing’s agenda.

OPLR ultimately made its final recommendations to the Legislature in November, two months before the beginning of the 2025 general session Shumway said the proposal meets the state’s statutory requirement to regulate safety and makes it clear to consumers what their practitioners are qualified to do.

“They are doing their job,” Spatafore said of OPLR. “But their job, and what’s right for the industry, we’re not seeing eye to eye. They’re going to be destroying the industry by doing their job the ‘right’ way.”

The recommendations are expected to be included in one of hundreds of bills lawmakers will consider next year, Shumway told The Salt Lake Tribune. And while there is not yet an early version of that bill posted to the website, Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, is said to be sponsoring the measure. Sandall did not respond to a request to discuss the proposal.

Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said he hopes his colleagues on the Business and Labor Interim Committee take the industry’s concerns seriously. He is not sponsoring the bill and does not know what it will look like yet, he told The Tribune in November. But his wife is a cosmetologist and his daughter recently became a licensed esthetician, and, as a lawmaker with family connections in the industry, he has reservations about OPLR’s proposal.

“Now, my job is to represent all of my district and not just my wife and daughter, of course,” Weiler said. “But I will say that there are some concerns that I have.”

He worries, for example, that cutting the required hours in half will make newly licensed cosmetologists unemployable because, Weiler said, they will enter the workforce with half the training their more experienced peers have.

There’s also the issue of license portability, he said. No other state requires fewer than 1,000 hours of training. Utah-trained cosmetologists, then, might not be able to transfer their licenses should they move to another state.

The portability issue is one OPLR addressed in its final proposal, Shumway said. Utah cosmetologists could combine three proposed new licenses — hair design, master esthetician and nail technician — into a de facto master cosmetology license.

“Portability is funky because it’s a way for certain groups to maintain the status quo with other states,” Shumway said. “We’re specifically trying to do something different from other states. Fewer people move in and out [of Utah] than the number of licensees. We don’t want to create a huge burden for 55,000 people, for the benefit of 1,200.”

As for training and employability, Mitchell said much of that “burden” already falls on salon owners like her. Most newly licensed cosmetologists don’t have specific employable skills, even under the current system, she said. Specialized licenses could encourage specialized training, which Mitchel said would benefit salon owners, practitioners and clients.

“If schools could focus more and do microlicensing, I actually think, as an owner, that would take the burden away,” Mitchell said, or at least make it smaller.

Spatafore is less optimistic. She gladly trains cosmetologists as needed to mentor them toward success, she said, but at a bustling salon, it’s easier to train new stylists who already have some technical experience. She probably wouldn’t hire someone with 800 hours of training.

“You’re giving these women a false hope,” she said. “Because you’re going to be lowering the hours, and so then there’ll be all these women that are licensed, but they’re not going to be able to get a job. They’re unemployable.”

Whether Utah’s cosmetology licensure gets a small trim or a total makeover is now in the hands of the Legislature as professionals, educators and regulators look their fate in the mirror.

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Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.