Louisiana Cosmetology Licensing and Renewal: Hours, Exams, Reciprocity and Fees

When you become eligible to test

Eligibility follows a clearance from the school last attended and a clearance from the board. A cosmetology student may take the written examination at 1,000 completed curriculum hours and the practical examination at 1,400, which is the split people most often get wrong. Esthetics students become eligible at 750 hours, manicuring students at 500, instructor students at 500, and blow-dry technician students at 1,000. People already holding a cosmetology, esthetics, manicuring or instructor licence from another state are eligible too, and a licence from another country works only with board approval. The application itself must be accompanied by a student registration certificate, a cumulative hours report, a colour photograph of the student, the twenty-five dollar initial license fee, and all applicable examination fees. Every fee contractually owed to the school you graduated from must be paid before you may apply, unless that school cannot certify because it closed or lost its records. Miss a scheduled examination without proper notice and reapplying costs a twenty-five dollar administrative fee; proper notice means contacting the board office seven days ahead, or 24 hours ahead in an emergency. Bring a mannequin: the practical work at the examination is performed on it.

Qualifications, instructors and reciprocity

To receive a certificate of registration as a cosmetologist, esthetician or manicurist under R.S. 37:582 you must be at least sixteen, must have had by the end of the required schooling the equivalent training contemplated in satisfactory completion of the tenth grade, must have passed the board's examination, must have paid the fee, and must have completed and passed the corresponding course at a board-approved school. Teaching is a separate and stiffer certificate. R.S. 37:583 requires a high school diploma or its equivalent, completion of the teacher's training course under a licensed teacher for a minimum of five hundred hours in not less than three months (or an instructor licence from another state instead), at least twelve months of active practice in the discipline before beginning the instructor's course, and a pass in the board's examination. A registered teacher then attends a board approved seminar of at least sixteen hours every two years. Under the rules, an instructor who has not attended within the preceding 24 months receives an inactive licence rather than an active one, and a master instructor, styled MCI, needs five consecutive years of teaching plus 16 hours of approved continuing education for five consecutive years, with 16 hours every year to keep it. Reciprocity under LAC 46:XXXI.509 takes an active licence from another state, country or territory plus a completed application, supporting documents, fees and evidence of passing all required examinations; if the applicant has not passed the national examination or a practical examination administered by the transferring jurisdiction, the reciprocity licence issues on passing the board's own.

Two renewal calendars, and what happens when you miss one

R.S. 37:590 runs two different clocks and the exam tests the difference. Every beauty shop owner, mobile salon owner, booth renter, manager of a beauty shop and school renews on or before January thirty-first each calendar year, and a certificate not renewed by then expires on the following first day of March, after which it can only be renewed by meeting the chapter requirements and paying the restoration fee. Every registered cosmetologist, esthetician, manicurist or teacher who continues to practise actively renews on or before their own date of birth, and that certificate expires thirty days after the birth date if it is not renewed. A holder who has been retired from practice for more than three years may resume by passing a short form examination conducted by the examination team, and may prepare with a brush up course at an approved school. Someone registered in Louisiana who keeps a licence to practise outside the state is treated as having maintained active practice for the term the foreign certificate covers. Every certificate holder must display the certificate in a conspicuous place in the principal place of business or employment.

The R.S. 37:599 fee schedule

The fee schedule is short enough to learn outright and it appears constantly. Each theory examination, each practical examination and each re-take costs twenty-five dollars. An initial certificate or annual renewal is twenty-five dollars for a resident cosmetologist, esthetician, manicurist or teacher, and fifty dollars for a nonresident; a manager pays twenty-five. A booth rental permit, a special permit and a temporary permit are twenty-five dollars each. A beauty shop, salon or mobile salon is thirty dollars resident and sixty-five nonresident, home care is thirty, and the initial inspection fee for a salon, mobile salon or booth rental is twenty-five. Student registration is ten dollars. Restoring an expired individual certificate within three years costs twice the applicable fee for each year expired, capped at three hundred dollars. Schools cost far more: an initial school certificate is three hundred and fifteen dollars resident and six hundred and fifteen nonresident, renewal is one hundred and sixty-five resident and four hundred and sixty-five nonresident, with a one hundred and fifty dollar fee for failing to renew on time, plus one hundred dollars for an initial school inspection, three hundred for a final inspection, fifty for a change of ownership notice and one hundred for a change of address notice. Miscellaneous fees are fifteen dollars for official certification of records, twenty-five for a duplicate licence and five for a copy of a booth rental contract form. The board certifies licensure status, hours earned and examinations completed free of charge once during a period of licensure or enrolment; every later request carries the fee.