Proposed bill would require cosmetology schools to teach textured hair styling

Carmen Veal Conway specializes in styling curly hair.

“The spectrum of curls range from wavy, to loose curls to tight curls,” Brown Skin Women owner Carmen Veal Conway said.

Conway opened up the brick-and-mortar in 2017 in Hartford, after seeing her online blog generate a lot of interest.

“This is a very niche category I work in, because you are not going to find many salons that can do what I do. Unfortunately, that’s not a good thing,” Conway said.

Currently, Conway has a waitlist of almost 2,000 clients. The sad reality is some customers may never get the chance to sit down in the salon hair at her studio.

“It’s this crucial lottery I feel, ‘Omg I got in,’ I get that a lot, people come in and say ‘I feel you are a celebrity,’ it shouldn’t feel that way because you were chosen or you just happen to get the email before someone else, because there aren’t enough people who can do what I do in the state,” Conway said.

Conway is hoping that narrative will change with a new proposed bill that would require cosmetology and barber students to receive education and training in working with textured hair, including different types of curls, waves, thicknesses and volume.

“The individuals who are getting trained may have an option to be trained, but now we are requiring everybody to be trained,” Sen. Saud Anwar (D-South Windsor) said.

Anwar said the bill aims to boost a more inclusive beauty industry for people of color.

“To be able to make sure that individuals in our state are going to be trained to take care of the entire population, not just a segment of the population,” Anwar said.

The senate passed the bill and now it heads to the House.