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Sarah Harbison is general counsel for the Pelican Institute for Public Policy.
Ashley N’Dakpri grew up watching her aunt run Afro Touch, a New Orleans hair-braiding shop. She learned the craft as a child and eventually took over Afro Touch’s Gretna, Louisiana, location, building a thriving business as natural hair styling boomed. Then the state stepped in. The Louisiana Board of Cosmetology informed her that without an “alternative hair design” permit — requiring 500 hours of government-mandated training — she was braiding hair illegally.
Even though N’Dakpri had spent years perfecting her trade and helping her customers, she needed a government permission slip to keep working.
Louisiana ranks among the most heavily licensed states in the country. Nearly 1 in 5 workers must obtain an occupational license to practice their trade, including librarians and makeup artists. The average licensing fee exceeds $300, and the Institute for Justice ranks the Pelican State sixth worst in the nation for licensing burdens and number of licenses (the state with the best rating is Wyoming). For low-to-moderate-income workers, this isn’t a bureaucratic inconvenience. It is a genuine barrier to economic survival.
Hair braiding illustrates exactly how licensing regimes get turned against the people they claim to protect. Thirty-seven states have exempted braiders from licensure entirely, recognizing that a skill passed down through generations and practiced safely across the country simply doesn’t require government permission. Mississippi reformed its licensing rules in 2005 and now just requires braiders to pay a $25 registration fee, follow basic health guidelines and pass a sanitation test. As of 2022, the Magnolia State had nearly 7,000 registered hair braiders. Louisiana has 124 permit holders. The chilling effect in Louisiana is so severe that braiders will leave the state rather than go through hundreds of hours of training. Louisiana’s rules don’t protect consumers, they export entrepreneurs.
That’s why it is alarming that a bill moving through the 2026 Louisiana legislative session would actually increase the training requirement from 500 to 600 hours and require coursework at a registered cosmetology school on topics including the “ancient origins of braiding.” There’s a motive hiding in plain sight: 600 hours is precisely the federal threshold that unlocks Title IV student loan funds for vocational programs. More red tape, more debt, more cosmetology school revenue — and fewer braiders.
State Rep. Mike Bayham (R) has offered a far more sensible alternative. His bill would replace the existing permit with a simple annual certification requiring safety and sanitation training, a 20-question exam and a fee. Bayham’s proposal is a proportionate response to a legitimate concern. That’s what good government looks like.
Louisiana’s occupational licensing reform story proves progress is possible and the stakes of backsliding are real.
In 2022, state Rep. Aimee Freeman (D-New Orleans) sponsored a billknown as the Right to Earn a Living Act. It requires licensing boards to justify their regulations based on legitimate public health, safety, welfare or fiduciary concerns and gives Louisianans the legal standing to challenge rules that fail that test. The bill was signed into law in 2022 and is a bipartisan win that protects the right to earn a living.
Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed the Welcome Home Act in 2024, one of the broadest universal license recognition reforms in the country, allowing qualified workers with out-of-state licenses to work in Louisiana without repeating training or testing. The same year, the legislature passed a bill, also sponsored by Bayham, repealing Louisiana’s most embarrassing licensing relic: the nation’s only state with a florist license. For decades, Louisiana required aspiring florists to pass a government exam before legally selling a flower arrangement. The organization I represent, the Pelican Institute, fought for repeal for years. A two-decade battle, finally won.
These victories followed a clear playbook: document the harm, make the case, build coalitions, change the law. But they also illustrate how vigilant reformers must remain. The same protectionist impulses that created the florist license are alive in the state’s treatment of hair braiders. Vested interests will always seek to use licensing as a competitive moat rather than a consumer protection. The health-and-safety argument for 500 hours of mandatory training does not hold up to scrutiny. That’s why most states don’t even require licenses for their hair braiders. What Louisiana’s licensing regime actually produces is fewer entrepreneurs, higher prices and diminished opportunity for the mostly working-class, Black women who make up the majority of this profession.
Louisiana has the tools to fix this. Pass Bayham’s bill. Continue to reduce onerous licensing requirements and make it easier to be an entrepreneur. The women who braid hair in Louisiana want to be able to build a business and work in their communities without being smothered by a government rule book. It’s hard to braid hair when your hands are bound with red tape.
The post Braiding hair? That’ll require 500 training hours and a permit. appeared first on Washington Post.
