Louisiana Board Wants 600 Training Hours for Hair Braiders

Louisiana's cosmetology board is moving to raise the training requirement for an alternative hair design permit from 500 hours to 600 hours — a change that would make the state the only one in the country demanding more time and money from natural hair braiders, not less.

At its March 2026 board meeting, the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) discussed legislation to add 100 hours to the permit. The board's stated justification: aligning the required hours with federal student loan lending requirements. That alignment matters because it pushes braiders toward taking on tuition debt for a permit that 37 states no longer require at all.

The board's composition raises a conflict-of-interest question that salon owners and braiding professionals should weigh carefully. The majority of LSBC board members own or are affiliated with a cosmetology school, and the board has no consumer members. Schools that sell the 500-hour course — soon potentially a 600-hour one — stand to gain directly from a higher mandate.

How does Louisiana compare with other states?

The national trend runs in the opposite direction. Thirty-seven states now require no permit to braid natural hair, freeing entrepreneurs to earn a living with a skill often passed down through generations of women. Of the states that still license braiders, eight require 50 hours of training or fewer. None of Louisiana's neighboring states require a license to braid natural hair at all.

The Pelican Institute's March 4, 2026 analysis puts the disparity in sharp numbers:

• Mississippi requires zero training hours and has over 1,200 registered hair braiders.
• Louisiana, with a larger population of African immigrants and Black residents, has 40 licensed hair braiders.
• Of Louisiana's 40 cosmetology schools that are not high schools, only 10 offer the alternative hair design permit course.
• None of those 10 schools are located west of Lafayette.

What would the extra 100 hours cost working braiders?

The stakes for practitioners are concrete. More required hours mean more tuition and fees, plus the indirect cost of delaying the start of a career — months of lost income while completing training that most states have abandoned entirely.

There is no evidence that a state license makes a better hair braider, the analysis notes. In fact, a Louisiana cosmetologist who never received natural hair braiding instruction during schooling can legally braid hair under current rules — an inconsistency that undercuts the board's safety rationale.

The labor-market effects ripple outward. States with more onerous licensing requirements have fewer hair braiders. That scarcity limits jobs and forces consumers to pay more, wait longer, and travel farther for braiding services. For clients in western Louisiana, the nearest permit course may be hours away, compounding the access gap.

What happens next?

The LSBC's proposal now heads toward the legislature. The Pelican Institute's recommendation is twofold: eliminate the alternative hair design permit outright, or limit hair braiding regulation to licensed cosmetologists. Louisiana lawmakers will decide whether the state bucks a national deregulation trend or joins the 37 states that have already freed braiders from licensing entirely. Watch the legislative session for the bill's introduction and its committee assignments.