It’s Harder to Become a Makeup Artist Than an EMT in 33 States
Becoming a licensed makeup artist takes focus — and time. (Photo: Gallery Stock)
Becoming an EMT is not something you can do overnight — as it shouldn’t be — typically requiring around 150 to 200 hours of training. But becoming a makeup artist, believe it or not, is even more grueling in more than half the states in the nation, where even more training hours are required — including a whopping 600 in New York!
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“When the state says the process for becoming a licensed makeup artist should be more rigorous than it is for jobs involving life-or-death situations, something is seriously wrong,” noted a recent report by the Institute for Justice, an activist libertarian law organization that fights for issues including economic freedom and First Amendment rights. A subsequent story by the Daily Signal noted that (according to 2012 data) a total of 36 states require makeup artists become licensed and 33, including Florida, Kentucky, Alabama, Nevada, and New York, require more training days for makeup artists than for EMTs.
“An occupational license is essentially a government permission slip to work,” Dick Carpenter, Institute for Justice director of strategic research, told the Daily Signal. “The people who want to work in a particular occupation, rather than being able to freely hang out their shingle and attract a customer, they have to spend their time earning a license rather than earning a living.”
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He added, “What we found was, makeup artists are widely regulated across the states, New York included, and that to enter this occupation, it’s very frequently pretty burdensome.” According to the Institute for Justice, makeup artists ranked 40th for most burdensome licensing requirements and the 22nd most heavily regulated occupation; other difficult-to-enter beauty related jobs include manicurist, the 14th most heavily regulated occupation, and esthetician, which requires a license in 50 states and is the eighth most heavily regulated occupation.
In Florida, the most difficult state in which to become a makeup artist, licensing training takes a little over eight times as long as it does to train to become an EMT. In Iowa, it takes five times as long to become a makeup artist as it does to become an EMT.
“Millions of people in New York put makeup on themselves every day,” Salim Furth of the Heritage Foundation, a public policy research institute, told its Daily Signal (the reporting arm of the Heritage Foundation). “This licensure law takes a skill that is already common, especially among women, and puts it beyond their reach as a way of making income. The government should respect the competence of entrepreneurs and the savvy of consumers instead of patronizing them.”
Joan Lincoln, who was a makeup artist for more than 20 years in Rochester, New York, but never licensed, has another perspective on the situation. “A makeup artist to me is like an artist who paints or someone who does woodworking,” she told WHEC News 10. “I don’t know that a license is truly necessary for that type of work.”
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