Did we have an exciting year! California passed a law to regulate the permanent cosmetics, tattoo and body piercing industries as of January 1,1999. The law required the creation of a task force with one member from a non-profit trade association for the permanent cosmetic industry on it. That of course, was the Society. We elected to put Susan Church (my SPCP co-founder) on the task force representing not only the Society but the entire permanent cosmetic field. And what a wonderful job she did in a very tough situation.

The law says all permanent cosmetic technicians, tattoo artists and piercers must register by 1/1/99. Therefore many counties will start to require people pay for either a license or registration in early 1999.

Beyond that it is not clear how the law is going to be enforced. The state could advise the counties on model guidelines or the counties could pass their own legislation, an option not very likely to happen. Therefore we felt it was important to let all California technicians know some of the state’s proposed guidelines - such as their suggestion all businesses have two sinks and that technicians be required to take CPR. We mailed an information packet written by Susan Church to almost 1500 people from the three industries in California and did they respond! The State of California did not know what hit them and suffice it to say no more has been heard on the two-sink idea! However many technicians did not mind the idea of CPR which is why we are offering a class prior to the convention.