Training On Black Hair Has Entered The Curriculum, Now Required At NY And NJ Cosmetology Schools

The new requirements aim to close a long-standing skills gap in textured haircare.

For years, Black clients could walk into a professional salon and discover that the person holding the shears or styling tool simply wasn’t trained to work with their hair. That’s beginning to change in New York and New Jersey, where new cosmetology requirements are putting textured hair directly into the curriculum and on licensing exams.

Both states now require aspiring beauty professionals to demonstrate knowledge and skills related to textured hair, including coily, curly, and wavy patterns, reports Gothamist. New York’s updated requirements take effect in September, while New Jersey began rolling out its new standards in August.

In New Jersey, legislation signed in January requires cosmetology, barbering, beauty culture, and hair-braiding students to receive training on textured hair. The state’s licensing exams will also include textured hair in both written and practical testing, according to New Jersey’s textured-hair law. The law also calls for schools to have appropriate training tools, including hair picks, weaving kits, braiding hair, and mannequins with textured hair.

Meanwhile, New York’s updated curriculu m requires students to complete 220 hours of training to learn textured hair techniques and styles like braiding, locking, and weaving.

Atiya Johnson, the CEO and founder of Jana’s Cosmetology Academy, a Black-owned and operated cosmetology school in New Jersey, said the training gap affects both professionals and customers.

“A seamstress should know how to work with every single piece of material that is put in front of him or her,” she told Gothamist. “As a cosmetologist, so should we. But if we’re not equipped and we’re not trained and taught to do so, then that is where the problem becomes.”

Johnson said her own cosmetology education included less than two weeks of textured-hair training during a four-year program.

“We never had a mannequin that looked like us,” she said, noting the difference between using a mannequin with silky straight versus textured hair.

New York Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, who sponsored the state legislation, said she has also heard numerous accounts of negative salon experiences involving textured hair.

“It’s not only horrific, you know, aesthetically, but physically and spiritually,” Solages said. “There’s a significant number of curly-haired people in this world, and it’s unfair that they have to experience such horrible events when going to a professional.”

The requirements come after the CROWN Act was passed by individual states starting in 2019 to protect people from discrimination based on hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots. The changes could have implications well beyond the classroom for salon owners and beauty entrepreneurs by addressing a long-standing skills gap in the hair and beauty industry.