Louisiana’s Board of Cosmetology passed a resolution on Nov. 1 that will require all licensing exams to include a section on cutting textured hair.
“Textured hair” is wavy, kinky, coily and tightly-curled hair — the type of hair that Aveda Global Artistic Director Renee Gadar says some hairstylists avoid.
“I see stylists, especially non-Black or brown stylists, falter a lot is in the finish,” Gadar said. “They don’t know how to style it. They’re usually still afraid of it, and so we’re wanting to add that to the state board, demonstrating styling techniques on textured hair.”
On Nov. 1, the Louisiana Board of Cosmetology passed a resolution to require all licensing exams to include a section on cutting textured hair.
“It’s a maddening experience to go from cosmetology to cosmetology school to teach texture,” Gadar said. “What this does on a legal level is, if you’re gonna call yourself a hairstylist, you need to do all the hair that is possibly going to sit in your chair.”
Louisiana will be one of just a handful of state boards to introduce a measure that makes textured hair mandatory for getting a license.
With this new resolution, Gadar hopes it will expand even more.
“Louisiana is the first state to make it a standard,” Gadar said. “I’m hoping that this just breaks out from here and that it becomes a national thing.”
The resolution will be implemented in the state starting June 2022.
This story was originally published by Eman Boyd on Scripps station KATC in Lafayette, Louisiana.