1.7 Shop Licensing, Manager Duties & Display Requirements

Two Licenses, Not One

A Tennessee esthetician working on the public needs two valid licenses in the room: a personal aesthetician license, and a shop license for the premises. They are issued separately, renewed separately, and enforced separately. An esthetician who rents a room inside an unlicensed building is exposed even if their own license is perfect.

Tennessee licenses the establishment type by the services offered: cosmetology shop, manicure shop, skin care shop, natural hair styling shop, manicure/skin care shop, or eyelash services shop. A dual shop license covers a premises offering two shop types.

Shop fees under Rule 0440-01-.13(5)

Change of ownership due to the death of an immediate family member carries no charge with a copy of the death certificate or obituary.

Two timing traps sit in the same rule. Under Rule 0440-01-.13(12), an application for licensure of a salon is valid for ninety (90) days after Board approval; failure to obtain an approved inspection for operation within those ninety days invalidates the application and requires a new application and a new fee. And a returned check adds a $20.00 fee on top of the amount due, payable thereafter only by cash, certified check or money order.

The Manager Rule

Rule 0440-02-.03 puts responsibility for sanitary condition squarely on the manager — and then insists a manager actually be there.

• (1) The manager is responsible for maintaining all parts of the establishment in a sanitary condition at all times and for otherwise ensuring compliance. Critically, this does not relieve any licensee of responsibility for the sanitary condition of the space or equipment they personally use. Both the manager and the individual esthetician can be cited for the same dirty station.
• (2) The manager or designated manager must be present on the premises any day that cosmetology, manicure, skin care or natural hair stylist services are being rendered.
• (2)(a) The manager is entitled to two (2) thirty (30) minute periods away from the premises during the day, provided they remain reachable by phone and can return to the shop within twenty (20) minutes if a Board representative requests their presence, an employee or customer requires assistance, or any other situation requires it.
• (2)(b) The manager's name must be posted and their license number must be available to any employee or customer. Absence does not relieve the manager of responsibility for compliance.
• (3) The shop manager must be licensed by the Board for at least one discipline the shop is licensed to offer. Managers may manage employees across disciplines — but each licensee may still only perform services they are licensed to practise, and only services the shop is licensed to offer.

That last clause is the one candidates misread. A licensed cosmetologist may manage a dual shop that includes skin care; the cosmetologist simply may not personally perform services outside their own license.

What Must Be Posted

Section 2.1 sets out Rule 0440-02-.04 and the inspection-form posting duty in Rule 0440-02-.05(2) in full. From the shop owner's side, three consequences matter:

• The shop license is posted by the establishment; each personal license is posted by the individual licensee at every location where that person practises. An owner who assumes the shop license covers the staff has misread the rule.
• The manager's name must be posted and the manager's license number available to any employee or customer (Rule 0440-02-.03(2)(b)).
• Where the Board issues an inspection form, it must be signed personally by the owner or manager as well as the inspector, and then posted conspicuously at all times. An unsigned or filed-away form is a finding.

Three further postings sit on the owner rather than the practitioner:

• Manicure shops must post a sign stating that the customer has the right not to have drills used on their nails (Rule 0440-02-.07(3)(n)).
• Shops participating in an apprenticeship curriculum must post a sign at the entrance announcing participation and allowing customers to elect whether to be served by an apprentice; the sign must be at least eight by ten inches (Rule 0440-01-.16).
• Schools must display the clinic-area sign reading "ALL SERVICES IN THIS SCHOOL PERFORMED BY STUDENTS ONLY" (T.C.A. § 62-4-122(e)).

Preparing for an Inspection

Members and inspectors of the Board must be accorded access to the establishment under Rule 0440-02-.05(1). An owner cannot control when they arrive, so the only workable strategy is to make the shop permanently inspection-ready. The owner-facing items that generate the most citations are: a manager physically present on any day services are rendered; the thirteen required items in Rule 0440-02-.07(2) present and in working order; all product containers labeled, including decanted product and mixed disinfectant; a stocked first aid kit; and no FDA-banned hazardous substances anywhere on the premises, in use or not.

Run the check yourself monthly and photograph the result. When a citation does land, correct it, document the correction with a date, and keep the file — Rule 0440-01-.14(2) lets the Board weigh repetition and remediation when it sets a penalty.

Attire and Identification

Rule 0440-02-.08(1) requires any licensee actively engaged in the practice of aesthetics in a shop to wear an identification tag showing their file number. Students must wear the uniform prescribed by the school; instructors must wear a name tag with an identification number; apprenticeship students must wear a name tag identifying them as an apprenticeship student and identifying their school.