This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, July 25th, 2014. I'm Caleb Brown.

The practice of natural hair braiding, sometimes called African hair braiding,

doesn't use harsh chemicals or devices, but states across the country what

to license those braiders as if they're practicing cosmetology.

Paul Avalar, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, is challenging these laws. You can learn more about the challenge at

braiding freedom.com. I spoke with Avalon today.

Natural hair braiding is simply braiding. It is twisting, it's braiding of hair, there's really no other way of saying it.

It doesn't use chemicals or heat, there's no cutting of hair involved, no dyes, no straighteners, nothing that really potentially damages someone's hair.

It's literally just using your hands to braide hair.

And yet several states want to loop in the practice of natural hair braiding into the practice of cosmetology, which is we see in lots of different fields, but what is the price here?

So 24 states actually license hair braiders as full-blown cosmetologists.

That means that in order just to braid hair for money, you have to go to cosmetology school for somewhere between

1500 to 2100 hours, depending on what state you're in, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, up to $20,000 in some places.

All of this, again, just to braid hair.

And of all of the training that you're going to receive, almost none of it is in any way relevant to what you're doing as a braider.

And this is, it's an intimate practice, it's often family members will braid like a young girl's hair or a young man's hair and what is the justification

that cosmetology boards or other people charged with enforcing these requirements, what do they offer as justifications

for this?

Well it's very much a cultural practice, oftentimes, you know, handed down generation

to generation teaching

teaching younger members of the family how to do it.

When you go to cosmetology boards and ask well why are you regulating braiding

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