LA Cosmetology common mistakes
LA Cosmetology · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
On written infection-control items, choosing the step that kills or removes pathogens (disinfection, sterilization) when the question asks for the first thing done to an item after use, rather than cleaning with soap and water before any disinfectant contact.
Candidates memorize the disinfectant immersion times and the difference between hospital-grade and quat solutions, then read every item as a disinfectant-selection question. The test writers often front-load the scenario with a specific implement and a specific product to pull attention toward the chemical step.
What to do instead
Sort every infection-control scenario into a sequence: wash and dry the item, then disinfect or sterilize, then store. When an item is described as visibly soiled or just removed from a client, the answer is cleaning. Practice by writing the four-step order on scratch paper before answering any implement item, and reject any option that puts a chemical on an uncleaned tool.
Treating all disinfectants as interchangeable, so the candidate picks an EPA-registered hospital-grade product for a scenario that specifically requires tuberculocidal or bactericidal, or applies a quat at the wrong dilution or contact time.
Study guides list product families without tying each to the label claim being tested. Candidates also assume stronger concentration means faster kill, which leads to skipping the label's contact time.
What to do instead
Build a one-page table with columns for product family, label claim (bactericidal, virucidal, fungicidal, tuberculocidal, pseudomonacidal), required contact time, and mixing rules. Memorize that the label, not the bottle color or brand, dictates dilution and dwell time, and that mixing products or adding water beyond the label voids the claim.
Confusing the physical and chemical phases of a relaxer service, or applying a relaxer without first confirming a patch test and strand test and without protecting previously relaxed hair during a retouch.
Textbook chapters present relaxer chemistry and application steps separately, so candidates learn the active ingredient and the smoothing technique but not the decision tree that links hair analysis to product strength and application order.
What to do instead
Drill the sequence: client consultation and scalp assessment, patch test per manufacturer, strand test to judge timing, protective base, application to new growth only, smoothing within the stated window, thorough rinse, then neutralizing shampoo until lather stays clear, followed by pH-restoring conditioner. For every practice item, state which step the scenario is describing before choosing.
Applying the wrong developer volume to a lightening or deposit-only scenario, or assuming a higher-volume developer lifts more color than it actually does when the hair is already at its underlying pigment limit.
Candidates memorize volume numbers as a ladder (10, 20, 30, 40) without linking each to the amount of lift and the level of deposit. They also forget that developer is an oxidizer and that its strength changes the chemical reaction, not just the speed.
What to do instead
Make a chart pairing each developer volume with its lift capability and its typical use: deposit only, one to two levels of lift, two to three levels, and maximum lift with high-lift blondes. Then practice predicting the underlying pigment exposed at each level and how toner selection follows. If a scenario asks for deposit with no lift, the answer is the lowest volume, not the highest.
Cutting elevation and sectioning errors: holding hair at the wrong projection for the desired shape, cutting past the guideline, or failing to keep consistent subsection size and tension across the head.
Practical training emphasizes the finished look, so candidates learn to mimic a cut rather than to name the elevation, guideline type, and distribution being used. Exam items describe geometry in words, and candidates answer from visual memory.
What to do instead
For each cut family, write the elevation, distribution, guideline, and sectioning in words: blunt and one-length at zero elevation with a stationary guideline, graduated at 45 degrees with a traveling guideline, layered at 90 degrees and above. Practice translating a written description into a hand position before looking at the answer choices.
On nail and skin items, mixing up the layers and structures, such as calling the nail plate the matrix, or naming the stratum corneum as the living layer that produces new skin cells.
The vocabulary overlaps across chapters and candidates study from diagrams rather than definitions. Words like matrix, mantle, bed, and plate are learned as a set without distinct functions attached.
What to do instead
Write a definition card for each structure that states location plus function in one sentence: matrix produces the plate, bed supports it, mantle is the seal at the base, plate is the visible body. For skin, order the layers from deepest to surface and attach the single job of each. Recite the cards aloud until the function, not the picture, triggers recall.
Answering anatomy and physiology items from general knowledge rather than from the specific structures and functions the cosmetology scope covers, for example confusing arteries with veins or misidentifying which muscles control facial expression versus mastication.
Candidates skim the anatomy chapter because it feels like review from high school biology, so they carry over simplified or incorrect models and never learn the salon-relevant list of bones, muscles, nerves, and vessels.
What to do instead
Restrict study to the structures the exam actually names: the bones of the skull, face, and arm and hand; the muscles of the face, neck, and arms with their actions; the main arteries and veins of the head and neck; and the cranial nerves relevant to facial movement and sensation. Build a two-column list of structure and action, and quiz yourself by covering the action column.
Treating Louisiana law and rules as generic professional conduct, so the candidate answers from common sense about licensing and sanitation instead of from the specific requirements for licensure, hours, renewal, shop permits, and inspection.
Candidates assume the law section mirrors the national sanitation material and skip the state-specific document, or they read it once without noting numbers, titles, and deadlines that the exam tests directly.
What to do instead
Obtain the current rules from the state board and build a fact sheet of every number and title the rules contain: required training hours, examination and licensing steps, renewal cycle and continuing education, shop and booth permit requirements, sanitation and recordkeeping duties, and the board's enforcement authority. Review the sheet weekly and recheck it against the board's current published rules before the exam, since rules are amended.
Underestimating the chemistry section and treating pH, oxidation, and chemical bonds as background reading, then missing items that ask why a service damages hair or why a product restores it.
Candidates focus on procedure and product names and skip the underlying reactions, so they cannot reason about what a relaxer, bleach, or permanent wave does to disulfide bonds and the cuticle.
What to do instead
Learn three anchors: pH scale and where hair and skin sit on it, oxidation and reduction as the two directions of bond change, and the role of the cuticle as the barrier. Then trace each chemical service through those anchors: what breaks, what reforms, what pH is needed, and what aftercare restores. If you can explain a service in those terms, most chemistry items become reasoning rather than recall.
Managing time poorly on scenario-heavy items by rereading long stems and second-guessing correct first answers, leaving the final questions unanswered or changed from right to wrong.
The exam mixes short recall items with longer applied scenarios, and candidates who have not practiced pacing spend too long on a few hard items. Anxiety then drives answer changing without a concrete reason.
What to do instead
Practice full-length timed sets under exam conditions and set a per-question budget from the actual item count and time allowed. Adopt a rule: answer, mark only if genuinely unsure, move on, and return at the end. Change an answer only when you can name the specific fact you misread, never on a feeling.