(no subject)

[jack]

Question on Reddit, "Can you take your hairdresser/barber license to another country?"

Answer, "No, other countries than the US don't require hairdressers/barbers to be licensed."

UK does often require the shop to get a licence from the local council, so it can be inspected for health safety. There's probably other details I don't know.

But it's a reminder to look at what other countries do and see if it's better or worse. Sometimes it's better -- I like British plugs for preventing accidental electrocution. But if you say "we have to do X else Y" and no-one else does X and don't have any more difficulty with Y then maybe you can just not bother and it will be ok.

Sometimes I'm seized with doubt. Can people just do this without needing any permission? But often, yes, there's been no need to regulate it so you just can unless it's banned.

Comments

[simont]

I went to a conference a couple of months ago at which I was the only Brit, and the consensus opinion of British plugs there was "They're batshit! It's so awful if you step on one!"

Hadn't even occurred to me. I guess when you live with these plugs from an early age you learn very quickly not to leave them points-upward on the floor! But I guess when you don't, you form a lifelong habit of just dropping the end of a mains cable without thinking twice...

[mtbc]

Yes, when I first had my hair cut in the US and saw the person's certificate on the wall, I wondered what it was and asked them about it.

I can see the value of certification if people are getting into bleaching and perming and such but, for where my father and I got our hair cut for a while in England, regulation really would be overkill: we were happy enough to get an agreeably cheap haircut from the guy who ran the shop in the next village over, he had a barber's chair in an outbuilding around the back.

[jack]

It's true, people from other countries don't like our plugs, but I think I'm right :)

I hadn't thought about why it was different. I don't remember "don't leave it pointing up" as something to remember, but I also don't remember seeing any lying pointing up.

For that matter, I rarely see a plug lying loose -- I wonder if that's also a difference, do other countries not having switches on sockets and replug/unplug the device to turn it off?

[jack]

I can see the value of certification if people are getting into bleaching and perming and such

A few people online suggested that perhaps there needs to be some short safety course about bleach and blood safety etc, but a full college course isn't necessary.

Some people suggested that having a qualification in the UK was *normal* even though not legally required.

But as in the original point, I'm not aware of a problem of rogue stylists doing things dangerously. None of the threads had people from outside the US saying "OK, occasionally some idiot hurts someone with bleach but that's normal". So IS it needed?

Perhaps, if they do, it's sufficiently obvious they're bad that people don't go back, and the chances of someone being seriously injured in the first session is sufficiently low it's not worth regulating. Or that most people have at least done their own hair and their friends' hair before doing it for money, and discovered any disasters that way.

[womump]

US doesn't have switches on outlets, at least. (I mostly have this from US YouTuber Alec of Technology Connections, who gets entertainingly exasperated on this topic; his thing is that almost all appliances have their own off switch, so why bother with outlet switches?)

It hadn't occurred to me that the reason UK plugs are individually switched might be because unplugging them generates a caltrop...

[mtbc]

Yes, there's probably fairly limited severity for the risks, any kind of permament maiming or whatever isn't exactly something I hear much about, and it's the kind of material the tabloids would definitely feature if it happened.