Hello My name is Christopher, I am a licensed cosmetologist who grew up in California and has thoroughly, always understood the process in which our state requires any individual to receive there cosmetology license. We are required to obtain 1600 hours of Theory as well as practical services on both live clients, and our mannequin doll heads. Anyone who has experienced having to achieve these 1600 hours while ALSO needing to maintain a full time job to pay for things like rent, utilities, supplies for school etc; would be the first one to tell you. IT IS NOT EASY. As you know, Gavin Newsom has put forth a bill that would grant any individual the absolute ease of obtaining there cosmetology license in two ways, one is a NEW program he’s now offering, that never existed when all of us worked hard for our licenses, this program is 600 HOURS. And will allow the student to be considered a “Hairstylist”, now they’ve separated hairstylist and cosmetologist. In order to be a licensed Cosmo, you need only 1000 hours. So for allllllll of us, who poured our time, our money and our passion into 1600 hours, we deserve a FULL REFUND, for 600 hours that have just been made irrelevant, I’m not sure what 600 hours of knowledge they’ve cut out of the course of training, but this is so upsetting to us existing stylists. Our already saturated industry is about to be fully saturated with new stylists willing to do work for cheap, free or trade for social media. This ALSO creates a problem for those of us seasoned and experienced from being able to be paid for what our craft and skill is actually worth, based off the extra education we’ve received, as well as the extra 600 hours of time and training in our field. I believe this is going to create an absolute animosity towards any new stylist who was able to obtain the very license we all worked so hard for, in less time. The laws and regulations in which we are required to follow all sanitization and efforts to ensure client protection have not changed except perhaps MORE strict due to COVID-19, so how does it make sense to now require less time and less training in these efforts to keep ourselves and clients safe, by learning about things like bloodborne pathogens and dangerous chemicals we work with everyday. I fear what 600 hours of knowledge is being removed, and i also fear for stylists with only 600 hours of training under there belt. This is a huge impact to our already impacted industry and as one of the elite stylists who is trained properly at the proper amount of hours, I am seeking justice for those of us already licensed who put in the work, who sacrificed our time, our money, and our blood sweat and tears to obtain our license for Cosmetology. A cosmetologist is NOT just a hairstylist, we are FULLY trained in all things that fall under the category of Personal beauty services. There should be no separation. 20 years ago to 5 years ago. The test is consistent and ALWAYS required 1600 hours in order to obtain ANY kind of license for performing these services. Bottom line. To touch anyone’s hair, skin or nails it is required to have 1600 hours bottom line, as for the separate program of 600 hours. That is also absolutely not fair to those of us already existing. This is entirely because of social media and anyone being able to say “I’m a stylist” a stylist in terms of hair is someone who went to school for the full 1600 and passed there State Board Test. This bill should absolutely not be able to change that, and if it is going to, I simply demand a refund for the 600 extra hours we apparently didn’t need. Thank you for reading this petition and I hope you can understand where this is coming from. All my life I knew what i wanted to be, I sacrificed SO much to get this license, so much time I’ll NEVER get back. So why should someone younger than me be allowed to get there license even faster than i ever did thus also allowing them to start there career even faster than we did. You’re sending a lot of inexperienced, untrained, unchecked individuals out into the world to potentially harm someone or several people. This. Is. Not. Okay. For someone who knows nothing of cosmetology or what we are required to learn, they have zero right to make decisions about how many hours the course of training is cut down. You NEED every minute of 1600 hours to be even remotely ready to venture into the professional salon world, I’m simply asking this to remain the standard. Or compensate those of us who’ve already given up and lost that time for our 1600 hours!