New legislation has been proposed to help small businesses in the beauty salon industry. But I wish it weren’t necessary.
Being in the beauty salon business isn’t easy. There are overheads, insurance costs and scheduling headaches, and the regulations in the industry are mind-boggling: Many states from Georgia to Hawaii to Alabama and Arizona require thousands of hours of work by an individual person just to become a licensed cosmetologist. Remember, this is for a cosmetologist, not a cardiologist.
And yet, even with these challenges, the number of independent beauty salons is proliferating, with one research organization estimating that the U.S. has almost 1.4 million hair and nail salon businesses, with as many as 80 percent of them being small businesses and a significant number of them being minority owned.
One thing that’s always irked the beauty salon industry is tips….
