22.3 Prohibited Practices, Discipline, Renewal, and Endorsement (N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15; 1.1(h)–(l); Board FAQ penalties)

The prohibited list is a shop problem, not only a personal-scope problem

Chapter 21 taught what a cosmetologist-hairstylist may do under N.J.A.C. 13:28-1.1(a)1 and N.J.S.A. 45:5B-3(j). N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15 is the matching shall not. Domain 6 items often dress 2.15 as a client request: tinted lashes, a fish tank at the pedicure throne, a "Botox party" in the back room. The correct exam move is refuse, explain, and document — not "just this once" and not "the client signed a waiver."

N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15(a) states that a practitioner who does these things is in unlawful practice under N.J.S.A. 45:5B-13(e) and may be penalized. A shop-license holder at whose shop those practices occur is also in unlawful practice under the same statute if the holder aids, abets, or permits the practitioner. The owner who "didn't personally tint the lashes" still owns the menu board and the fish tank.

N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15(b) is the full practicing-licensee list. Learn it as twelve bans, not as a vibe about "medical stuff."

1. Credo blade, skin scraper, lancet, or comparable implement. Callus razors, corn blades, and lancets for extra-follicular "extraction theater" are out. Pedicure uses files, buffers, and authorized implements that stay on dead surface cells, not a blade that planes living tissue.

2. Work below the stratum corneum. Massaging, cleansing, or stimulating the skin, with or without cosmetic preparations, by hand or by mechanical or electrical appliances, below the stratum corneum, thereby affecting the living cells of the epidermis, is prohibited. New Jersey wrote the depth line into the shop rule. Aggressive scraping, devices marketed to erase living epidermis, or "dermal planing" that is not a lawful cosmetic exfoliation stays on the medical side of that line. Chapter 16 electrical facial equipment still has to stay inside Class I devices (item 8 below).

3. Eyebrow and/or eyelash tinting. The rule is the offer or the service. A C-H may apply makeup and, as Chapter 17 taught, work with strip lashes and lash extensions inside cosmetic practice. Tinting lashes or brows is a different, prohibited service.

4. Fish pedicures. "Fish pedicures" means using live fish to perform any service incident to pedicure. Garra rufa tanks, "fish spa" add-ons, and a bowl of fish under the chair are all 13:28-2.15(b)4. This ban is independent of the 13:28-3.2(c) basin recipe in Section 18.2. A perfectly disinfected whirlpool does not legalize fish.

5. Ear candle services. Placing a manufactured or homemade funnel-type candle or any device in the ear to cleanse or treat the ear or inner ear canal is prohibited.

6. Disease-cure claims. Any service that claims to cure or remedy any disease or illness is prohibited. A scalp treatment is not a psoriasis cure. A facial is not an acne-drug substitute. Marketing language on the price list is part of the violation.

7. Medical services as determined by the Board of Medical Examiners, including laser hair removal and injections of Botox, Restylane, or other similar medications for skin enhancement or collagen production. The C-H license is not a medical-spa license.

8. Medical devices other than FDA-approved Class I devices. A practitioner shall not use a medical device to perform C-H, beauty culture, barbering, manicuring, skin care specialty, or hair braiding services other than Class I medical devices approved by the FDA, and shall follow the manufacturer's instructions for use, cleaning, and maintenance of those Class I devices. Lasers, ablative devices, and other higher-class machines are not saved by a weekend certificate.

9. Skin-tag removal.

10. Teeth whitening or other services related to beautification of the teeth.

11. Permanent cosmetic applications, such as tattooing and permanent make-up.

12. Body piercing, meaning puncturing or penetrating any part of the body with a needle or other implement to insert jewelry or another object, except piercing of the earlobe using only a pre-sterilized single-use stud and clasp ear-piercing system, following the manufacturer's instructions. Helix, tragus, nose, navel, and dermal anchors are not the earlobe exception. Reusable piercing guns with non-single-use jewelry are not the exception.

Chapter 17 hair removal still has no electrolysis in C-H scope; Chapter 16 electrical facials stay inside Class I. Those chapters teach technique. This section is the criminal-adjacent shop list when a client asks anyway.

Scenario: lash tint and a fish pedicure on the same Saturday

A bride in Hoboken wants eyelash tint before the ceremony and a fish pedicure "for relaxation photos." The C-H licensee offers a makeup application, strip lashes or extensions consistent with Chapter 17, and a lawful pedicure using 13:28-3.2 tools and basin rules. The licensee refuses tint and fish. N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15(b)3 and (b)4 prohibit offering those services, not only completing them. Putting tint on the menu "by request" is an offer. Borrowing a neighbor's fish tank for one appointment is still a fish pedicure. The shop holder who lets either service happen permits it under 13:28-2.15(a). A signed waiver does not amend the Administrative Code.

Individual renewal, late window, suspension, reinstatement, inactive (N.J.A.C. 13:28-1.1(h)–(l))

License types and first-time fees were Chapter 21. The renewal machine is this section.

13:28-1.1(h). The Board sends a renewal notice to all licensees at least 60 days before expiration. If that notice is not sent at least 60 days before expiration, no monetary penalties or fines apply for unlicensed practice during the period after expiration, not to exceed the number of days the notice was short of 60. The 60-day notice is the Board's duty. Do not confuse it with a 60-day grace period to practice after expiration.

13:28-1.1(i). The licensee renews for two years from the last expiration date, with the renewal fee in N.J.A.C. 13:28-5.1, before expiration. A licensee who submits renewal within 30 days after expiration pays the renewal fee plus the late fee. A licensee who fails to submit a renewal application within 30 days of expiration shall have the license suspended without a hearing.

13:28-1.1(j). Continuing to render services on a suspended license is unauthorized practice of the licensed profession and is subject to the penalties in N.J.S.A. 45:1-25 (the FAQ's $10,000 / $20,000 structure).

13:28-1.1(k). Reinstatement after that suspension requires a renewal application, all past delinquent renewal fees, the reinstatement fee in 13:28-5.1, and an affidavit of employment listing each job during the suspension, with names, addresses, and telephone numbers of each employer. If the license has been suspended more than five years, the person must also retake and pass the license examination in N.J.A.C. 13:28-1.2. Cornell's text cross-references "(h)" for the suspension; the operative 30-day suspension-without-hearing sentence is 13:28-1.1(i). Use (i) for the 30-day clock and (k) for the five-year retake.

13:28-1.1(l). A licensee may elect inactive status. An inactive licensee shall not render C-H (or the other listed practices) for the entire biennial period. Return to active practice is by paying the current biennial renewal fee in 13:28-5.1.

N.J.A.C. 13:28-5.1 individual numbers this exam uses: biennial license renewal (individual) $90; late fee $30; reinstatement fee $50. Initial individual license is $90 in year 1 of a cycle or $45 in year 2 — that is first issuance, not the late-renewal math. Endorsement is $100 plus the license fee. Duplicate license $50. The Board does not currently publish a continuing-education hour requirement for practicing-license renewal; do not invent a CE number.

Do not mix shop renewal (N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.4: Board may restore within 90 days, then a brand-new initial shop application) with individual renewal (30 days plus $30, then suspension without a hearing). Ninety is the shop window. Thirty is the person window.

Scenario: 35 days late with a full book

Keisha's C-H license expired March 31. She kept working through May 5 because the shop was busy and she "thought there was a 90-day shop grace." She mails renewal on May 5 with only the $90 biennial fee. Two clocks are already wrong. Individual renewal's late window is 30 days, not 90. After 30 days, N.J.A.C. 13:28-1.1(i) suspends without a hearing. Work on May 5 is unauthorized practice under 13:28-1.1(j). Reinstatement is not a $90 check: it is the renewal application, past-due renewal fees, the $50 reinstatement fee, and the employment affidavit. If she had stayed suspended more than five years, 13:28-1.1(k) would add re-examination. The shop's 90-day shop-license window never applied to her personal wall license.

Civil penalties the Board FAQ publishes

Board FAQ item 13 (last modified 5/2/2025): the Board may investigate and penalize unlawful, including unlicensed, practice. In addition to suspension or revocation, a person may be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 for a first violation and not more than $20,000 for each additional second and subsequent violation of a law or regulation the Board administers. The FAQ points to that structure under N.J.S.A. 45:1-25. Performing cosmetology for payment without a Board license is the FAQ's unlicensed-practice example. A licensee who performs noncompliant services may also be penalized. Violations are case by case. N.J.S.A. 45:1-25's 2025 compilation likewise states a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 for the first violation and not more than $20,000 for the second and each subsequent violation of a board-administered act or regulation, with each act a separate violation.

Those caps are maximums, not a price list. The Board may also suspend or revoke. A shop holder who permits 13:28-2.15 services stacks shop discipline on top of the practitioner's file.

Endorsement and out-of-state practice — use the Board page, do not invent hour math

The Board licensing-requirements page (last modified 8/12/2026) states:

Licensure by endorsement is offered to cosmetologist-hairstylist applicants if they satisfy the requirements for licensure as a cosmetologist-hairstylist, and presently hold a current license as a barber and beautician in another state or foreign country.

Read that as two conditions: meet New Jersey C-H requirements, and currently hold both a barber license and a beautician license elsewhere. It is not published as "any out-of-state C-H license transfers automatically," and it is not published as "1,200 New Jersey hours minus their school hours."

Board FAQ items 3 and 4: you cannot work in New Jersey on another state's beautician or barber license, or on a foreign hairstylist credential, without a New Jersey license. Out-of-state and out-of-country applicants request those applications in writing (they are mailed), submit the required documentation, and pass the Board's examination.

N.J.A.C. 13:28-1.1(e)3 is the training-documentation rule, not an hour-for-hour conversion table. Applicants trained in another state or country must show, by certification from that licensing authority, that the training is substantially equivalent to New Jersey licensed-school training. Applicants who hold a license from another state or country and have practiced there for at least three years may submit, in lieu of that training documentation, a notarized affidavit of work experience and a letter of certification of licensure. The Board still administers an examination; the FAQ does not waive the exam because someone practiced three years in Pennsylvania. Do not invent a formula such as "subtract 200 hours" or "one year of work equals 100 hours." Those numbers are not published on the licensing-requirements page or in 13:28-1.1(e)3.

N.J.A.C. 13:28-5.1 charges $100 for endorsement plus the license fee. That is a Board fee line, not a substitute for theory and practical passage.

Student permits, temporary permits, and the 2025 shampoo-permit statute stay in Chapter 21. This section only uses them as a reminder: a lapsed personal license is not repaired by a student permit, and a Pennsylvania license in a New Jersey station is still unlicensed practice under 13:28-2.14 until New Jersey issues the wall license you post under 13:28-2.12.