PA Cosmetology

The Board's page directs candidates to http://www.pearsonvue.com/pa/cosmetology/ for examination information, scheduling, and checking the status of an application. General or application questions can go to the Board at 1-833-DOS-BPOA, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The Board's email mailbox is reserved for documentation such as letters of good standing, exam information, transcripts, and verifications.

Those specifications are not published on the Board's cosmetology page, and the vendor page linked in our source returned a 404 error at retrieval, so we could not verify item counts, time limits, or a passing score. Confirm current figures directly with the testing vendor or the Board before you build a timing strategy around them.

Fees and any retake waiting period are not stated on the Board page we verified, so treat any number you hear secondhand as unconfirmed and get it from the vendor or Board in writing. Do not assume a retake is available on demand; scheduling rules are set by the testing vendor, not by this study platform.

No. With the passage of Act 100 of 2024, effective 60 days from October 16, 2024, natural hair braiders, natural hair braider teachers, and natural hair braiding salons in the Commonwealth are no longer required to be licensed. The State Board of Cosmetology no longer accepts applications for initial licensure, renewals, reactivations, or changes for those license types.

Board orders say no. An April 25, 2025 proposed adjudication and order (case 24-45-004876) states that applying permanent makeup is outside the scope of cosmetology and violates 49 Pa. Code § 7.77. Consent agreements likewise place microblading, dermaplaning, milia removal, tattooing, piercing, Botox, face fillers, microneedling, hydro-dermabrasion, and oxygen therapy outside the scope of cosmetology when performed in a salon.

Section 7.77 prohibits using a salon for other purposes, and the Board applies it to services it considers outside the scope of cosmetology. The Board also notes that Bureau inspectors will continue to inspect the entirety of your salon for compliance with § 7.77 and all other relevant regulations and provisions of the Cosmetology Act, so scope questions are effectively salon-compliance questions too.

Yes. The Board's regulations allow an applicant to request a variance from the minimum space requirements set forth in 49 Pa. Code § 7.76 (floor space). All floor space variance requests must be submitted in the manner set forth in the new salon application or the salon change application, whichever is applicable.

Work one domain to a stable practice score before starting the next, and put Pennsylvania laws and sanitation early rather than last, because rule details are the easiest points to lose and the hardest to cram. Once all four domains are solid, switch to mixed sets so you practice identifying which rule a scenario is testing.

Scope-of-practice scenarios are the big one: candidates assume anything a client asks for is fair game in a salon, when Board orders say otherwise. The second is treating the law domain as filler. The third is memorizing technique vocabulary without the sanitation step attached, which turns a two-part answer into a half-credit answer.

No. The Board states that Board staff and Board counsel are unable to give advisory opinions, legal advice, or interpretations of the Cosmetology Act and Board regulations, and cannot indicate how the Board would vote on a given scenario. The Board invites you to consult a private attorney or professional organization; the underlying laws are 49 Pa. Code Chapter 7, Act 86 of 1933, and Act 48 of 1993's civil penalty schedule.