The Tangled Mess of Occupational Licensing

Kine Gueye is a hair braider in Kentucky. She learned to braid hair as she was growing up in Senegal, where “African hair braiding” is a way of life. The art of hair braiding extends back thousands of years in West Africa, and it carries strong social and cultural significance for Gueye and her customers.

When Gueye arrived in the United States, she turned her skills into a job. She sometimes worked 12 hours a day braiding hair in her Louisville home, earning between $80 and $250 per customer. As her practice expanded, so did her family. She got married, had children, and moved her practice into a storefront.

Then the government came knocking. “She told me she was from the state Board of Cosmetology … and that I was not allowed to do hair without a license,” Gueye told the Urban News Service. “I told her I had been braiding for years, and I did not know you had to have a license.”

Braids, like cornrows, micro braids, and Senegalese twists, require no chemicals or heat and provide relatively easy maintenance for kinky hair. In contrast, the typical styles offered in American salons often use caustic chemicals and heat to straighten hair. Properly handling those chemicals is one of the skills that cosmetology schools teach.

It’s worth noting that until very recently Kentucky cosmetology schools didn’t teach African hair braiding, and that Gueye doesn’t use chemicals in her practice.

Despite her decades of experience and her many happy customers, the decision that the government put before Gueye was difficult, if straightforward: spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to get right with the state — and stop earning money in the meantime — or choose another line of work.

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