Do You Need a License for This in Florida?

Hair braiding, hair wrapping, body wrapping, applying nail polish, and applying makeup need no Florida cosmetology license or registration. Each is exempt by statute. The exemptions are narrower than they look: each applies only to a person whose practice is “confined solely to” that activity, and the makeup exemption stops short of several things people assume it covers.

The five exemptions, in the statute’s own words

Section 477.0135 lists them. Each is phrased the same way — “A license or registration is not required for a person whose occupation or practice is confined solely to…” — and then names the activity:

• hair braiding, as defined in s. 477.013(9) (s. 477.0135(7))
• hair wrapping, as defined in s. 477.013(10) (s. 477.0135(8))
• body wrapping, as defined in s. 477.013(12) (s. 477.0135(9))
• applying polish to fingernails and toenails (s. 477.0135(10))
• makeup application (s. 477.0135(11))

“Confined solely to” is the whole exemption

The phrase is not decoration. An exemption covers a practice confined solely to the named activity. Someone who braids hair and nothing else is outside the licensing requirement; someone who braids hair and also cuts or colors it is not doing the exempt thing any more, and the exemption stops applying to that work.

Where the braiding and wrapping definitions draw the line

Each of the first three exemptions points at a definition, and the definition is the boundary. This is the part most often got wrong.

Hair braiding is “the weaving or interweaving of natural human hair or commercial hair, including the use of hair extensions or wefts, for compensation without cutting, coloring, permanent waving, relaxing, removing, or chemical treatment” (s. 477.013(9)). Extensions and wefts are inside the definition. Chemistry and cutting are outside it.

Hair wrapping is the wrapping of manufactured materials around strands of hair “without cutting, coloring, permanent waving, relaxing, removing, weaving, chemically treating, braiding, using hair extensions, or performing any other service defined as cosmetology” (s. 477.013(10)). Note that this one excludes braiding and extensions, which the braiding definition allows — the two exemptions are not interchangeable.

Body wrapping is “a treatment program that uses herbal wraps for the purposes of cleansing and beautifying the skin of the body”, and expressly does not include applying oils or lotions to the body “except fluids contained in presoaked materials used in the wraps”, nor “manipulation of the body’s superficial tissue, other than that arising from compression emanating from the wrap materials” (s. 477.013(12)).

The boundary between exempt makeup work and regulated lash, brow and microblading services has its own page: lashes, brows and microblading.

Where a credential is needed it is usually one of Florida’s four credentials — but not always. Microblading and permanent makeup are tattooing under Florida law, and the Department of Health licenses them, not the Board of Cosmetology. That answer is on the page above.

Makeup: what the exemption includes, and what it does not

The makeup exemption is the one worth reading twice, because its two lists work differently. The list of what it includes is open — “includes, but is not limited to” — covering makeup primer, face paint, lipstick, eyeliner, eye shadow, foundation, rouge or cheek color, mascara, strip lashes, individual lashes, face powder, corrective stick, and makeup remover.

The list of what it does not include is closed (s. 477.0135(11)). These remain regulated — though not all of them by chapter 477:

• manual or chemical exfoliation
• semipermanent lash application
• lash or brow tinting
• permanent makeup application
• microblading
• hair removal

So strip lashes and individual lashes are exempt; semipermanent lash application is not. That line runs through work often sold together.

These registrations no longer exist

Hair braiding, hair wrapping and body wrapping were once separate registrations with their own training requirement. They are gone. Section 477.0132, which created the registration, is no longer in the chapter — the statute index runs straight from 477.013 to 477.0135 — and the rules that implemented it, chapter 61G5-31, are repealed: the registration mechanics on 3 September 2012, and the definitions, course requirements, renewal and pending-practice rules on 22 November 2020.

Two things still circulate that suggest otherwise. The Board’s own older material describes the hair-braider registration as though it were live, and the repealed rule chapter is still published with its title intact, so it looks current until you read the repeal note on each rule inside it. Neither changes the statute.

The definitions, though, did not go anywhere — and that is the point people miss. Sections 477.013(9), (10) and (12) are still in force, because the exemptions above depend on them. The terms were not deleted from the law; the registrations were.

Human trafficking training: not a cosmetology requirement

Several sites state that Florida salons must provide human-trafficking training or display a trafficking sign. Chapter 477 and the Board’s rules in division 61G5 contain no such requirement — no training, no signage, no notice. The word does not appear anywhere in the chapter or in any of the Board’s ten rule chapters.

Florida does require that sign elsewhere. Section 787.29 lists the establishments it applies to: adult entertainment establishments, and “a business or establishment that offers massage or bodywork services for compensation” that is not owned by a regulated health care practitioner (s. 787.29(3)(a)). Those two are the whole list. Cosmetology salons are not on it.

The distinction matters for one case in particular: a salon that also offers massage or bodywork services would fall under section 787.29 through that activity, not through its cosmetology license. If that describes the business, that statute is the one to read.

If you need a license after all

Everything above is about work that falls outside the licensing requirement. The requirements for the license itself — the age or diploma rule, the training hours, and the examination — are on the page about the cosmetology license itself.

What chapter 477 provides where the work needs a license and nobody holds one — two separate statutes, one criminal and one administrative — is set out under practicing without a license.