LICENSING GUIDE
Pennsylvania
— Esthetician
Pennsylvania's Esthetician limited license authorizes esthetics only: facial massage; applying cosmetic preparations, antiseptics, tonics, lotions, or creams to the face; removing superfluous hair with tweezers, depilatories, or waxes; and dyeing eyelashes and eyebrows. Board decisions identify permanent makeup, microblading, dermaplaning, hydro-dermabrasion, oxygen therapy, milia removal, Botox and fillers, microneedling, tattooing, and piercing as outside the cosmetology scope.
Renewal Period:
24 months
Last Verified:
September 17, 2026
PATHWAYS TO LICENSURE
School Pathway
Training Hours:
300
Applicants must be at least 16, meet the 10th-grade education requirement (subject to statutory exceptions), complete 300 hours of esthetics instruction in a licensed school of cosmetology, and pass the required examination. The written examination may be taken after 250 hours, but licensure requires completion of all 300 hours and school certification.
Apprenticeship Pathway
Pennsylvania's cosmetology apprenticeship provisions do not provide an apprenticeship route for the Esthetician limited license.
SOURCES & VERIFICATION
License Sources
Pennsylvania Department of State
Pennsylvania General Assembly
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
No treatment scope rules have been published for this license type yet.