North Carolina Esthetician Scope of Practice 2026

North Carolina's skin-services boundary is easy to state and easy to get wrong, because the state drew the line in a declaratory ruling rather than a statute. There is no med spa statute, no facility licence, and no inspector who arrives to look at your treatment room — only a boundary that moved once, publicly, within two years, and a great deal of confident misinformation about where it now sits.

Three bodies decide the answer between them. The North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners owns esthetician scope under the Cosmetic Art Act at Chapter 88B. The North Carolina Medical Board (NCMB) owns the medical side under the Medical Practice Act at Chapter 90, working through position statements rather than cosmetic-specific rules. The North Carolina Board of Nursing (NCBON) decides what a nurse may do with a prescriber's order — which is how most medical-depth skin services actually get staffed here.

This guide gives a direct verdict for each service, names the authority behind it, and says plainly where North Carolina is silent or unsettled rather than filling the gap with a number that sounds official. For the injectables side of the same practice, our companion guide on who can inject Botox in North Carolina works the same ground licence by licence, and the North Carolina regulations summary keeps the primary sources together.

The Three Boards Behind Every North Carolina Skin Service

Get the architecture right first — North Carolina distributes this authority unusually.

The Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners owns the cosmetic side

Esthetician and cosmetologist licensure sits with the North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners under Chapter 88B, the Cosmetic Art Act. The definitions at G.S. 88B-2 are deliberately general: "cosmetic art" means all or any part or combination of cosmetology, esthetics, natural hair care, or manicuring, including the systematic manipulation with the hands or mechanical apparatus of the scalp, face, neck, shoulders, hands, and feet. An "esthetician" is an individual licensed by the Board to practise only that part of cosmetic art that constitutes skin care.

Notice what that does not do: it does not enumerate services, name devices, or set depths. The statute delegates the line-drawing to the Board, which is why North Carolina's answers live in rules, declaratory rulings, and Board guidance rather than the General Statutes. Anyone who tells you Chapter 88B "allows" or "prohibits" a modality by name is describing a statute that does not exist.

The Medical Board owns everything past the epidermis

The NCMB administers the Medical Practice Act. The operative provision is N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-18, under which any person is regarded as practising medicine or surgery who shall diagnose, treat, operate on, or prescribe for or administer to, or profess to treat any human ailment or physical injury of another person. A cosmetic purpose does not move a service out of that definition. The NCMB works through position statements, compiled in a compendium updated several times a year — most recently in September 2025, November 2025, and January 2026 editions.

The Board of Nursing decides who actually performs the medical services

The NCBON's position statement on Cosmetic/Aesthetic Dermatological Procedures is what makes most med spa staffing work. It provides that RNs and LPNs may perform cosmetic and aesthetic dermatological procedures — the familiar menu, including chemical peels, laser hair removal, sclerotherapy, micropigmentation, and injectables — when ordered or prescribed by a physician, NP, PA, or other practitioner with prescriptive authority acting within their own legal scope. It conditions that on the nurse's knowledge, skill, and demonstrated competency for the specific procedure, and directs nurses planning laser work to the NCMB's guidance first.

No med spa statute, no facility licence, no inspector

North Carolina licenses no medical spa as a facility and operates no statewide laser facility registration. This is not a gap that helps you: no agency reviews your menu before you open, and no permit exists to evidence you got it right. Enforcement is complaint-driven — a patient outcome, a competitor, or a former employee starts it, and by then the only record is your own chart. Our med spa regulations by state reference sets this model beside the licence-heavy states.

The Verdict Table: Who May Perform Each Skin Service

Every row is explained below, because the condition attached to a "yes" is usually what gets practices cited.

One question resolves most of this table: what is this service intended to do, and how deep does it go? North Carolina reasons from intent and depth, not product names.

The 2022 Declaratory Ruling — What It Actually Decided

This is the document the entire North Carolina skin menu turns on, and the one most often summarised incorrectly.

The 2020 ruling that came first

The confusion starts with dates, and it has a real cause. On August 24, 2020, the Board issued a declaratory ruling holding that dermaplaning was not within the scope of practice of cosmetologists or estheticians under Chapter 88B. That stood for roughly two years. Search engines still surface the Board's ruling document under a 2020 date because the published PDF opens by reciting that history — which is why you will see the same document cited as both a 2020 and a 2022 ruling.

The July 25, 2022 reversal and the intent-of-the-service test

On July 25, 2022, the Board reversed. It determined that because the intention of both dermaplaning and microneedling is the stimulation of the skin, those modalities fall within the scope of practice of estheticians and cosmetologists. The reasoning matters more than the outcome: the Board did not create a list of approved services, it articulated a test. The question is what the service is intended to accomplish. Skin stimulation is cosmetic art; treating a condition, altering tissue structure, or producing a therapeutic wound is not.

This is why importing another state's answer fails. North Carolina does not ask what device you bought or what the manufacturer calls it. It asks what you meant to do to the skin — and reads your consent forms, marketing, and treatment notes to find out.

The FDA-cleared device condition, and a wording trap

The ruling is conditioned on the device: the Board's language is reported as permitting FDA-approved devices for dermaplaning and microneedling as long as the intent of the service falls within the licensee's scope, operated within manufacturer guidelines.

Read "FDA-approved" carefully, because it is used loosely and then repeated as though it were a searchable category. Microneedling pens reach the market through the FDA's 510(k) clearance pathway, not the premarket approval pathway reserved for higher-risk devices — there is effectively no such thing as an FDA-approved microneedling pen. Hold the device's 510(k) clearance number and cleared indications in your equipment file. If a regulator asks what makes your device compliant, a clearance letter is an answer; a supplier's marketing claim is not.

The 1.0 mm figure — what is reported, and what we could not confirm

Here is the number everyone wants, handled honestly. Trade and industry sources consistently report the North Carolina cap on esthetician microneedling as 1.0 mm — Associated Skin Care Professionals, esthetics educators, and North Carolina practices all describe the 2022 ruling in the same terms, consistently enough that it clearly reflects the Board's operating position as the industry understands it.

What we could not do is open the Board's own published ruling to confirm that 1.0 mm appears in its text. The reported summaries emphasise the intent-of-the-service test and the device condition; the depth figure is universally attributed but not, in the material we could reach, quoted from the ruling itself. We flag that rather than paper over it.

The practical guidance barely changes: treat 1.0 mm as your operating ceiling, because that is the figure the state's own industry works to and no source suggests a higher one. If your model depends on the precise edge, request the Board's current position in writing first. A boundary that reversed once in two years is worth confirming.

A different line that gets confused with this one

You will also encounter 0.3 mm, and it is not North Carolina's number. That threshold comes from the FDA's device classification framework, which treats instruments penetrating beyond roughly 0.3 mm as regulated medical devices rather than cosmetic products. It describes how Washington regulates the device, not how Raleigh regulates the practitioner. Conflating them produces both common errors: estheticians who think they are capped at 0.3 mm and needlessly under-serve, and operators who cite the FDA line to justify a service the Board would not recognise. Our microneedling laws by state guide shows how the two lines interact across jurisdictions.

The Two Hard Limits the Board Applies to Every Device

The 2022 ruling opened two doors. Two standing limits from the Board's own guidance keep them from opening further.

Limit one: work stops at the epidermis

The Board's guidance is that esthetician and cosmetologist work is limited to the epidermis, and that licensees may not use products, devices, or techniques penetrating beyond it. That single sentence resolves more questions than the declaratory ruling does: it is why medium-depth peels are out, why RF microneedling is out, and why any service whose therapeutic mechanism is controlled dermal injury is out, however the device is marketed.

A companion limit sits alongside it: cosmetic art licensees are prohibited from diagnosing injury, illness, or disease — a routine practice pattern, not an exotic one. An esthetician who assesses a lesion, tells a client what a pigmented spot is, or recommends a course for a diagnosed condition has crossed into medicine before touching them.

Limit two: the FDA device-class exclusion

The Board's quick-reference guidance states that use of devices falling within FDA classifications 3, 3A, 3B, or 4, or any Radiation Emitting Device designation, is not within the scope of practice of cosmetic art licensees. That is the bright line to memorise, because it disposes of an entire category of sales pitch. When a vendor tells your esthetician a system is "esthetician-safe" or "cleared for spa use," the relevant question is not what the vendor says — it is what class the device occupies and whether it emits radiation.

Limit three, on the title itself

The same guidance provides that licensed cosmetologists and estheticians may not state or refer to their licensure or practice as "Medical" or "Master." North Carolina issues no advanced, master, or medical esthetics licence, so those titles describe nothing the state recognises. That is a real exposure: advertising "medical esthetics" invites clients to expect an evaluation your licence cannot provide, and makes any out-of-scope service look intentional if a complaint is later investigated.

One service that belongs to nobody in this chapter

A useful oddity: microblading is not within cosmetic art scope in North Carolina. It is regulated as tattooing through local health departments, not the Board. Practices assuming the esthetics licence covers permanent makeup because it covers other needle-based services have it wrong — that permit is issued by a county.

Facials and Superficial Exfoliation: Unambiguously In Scope

Start with the settled ground; it makes the contested edges easier to see.

Verdict: yes, on the esthetics licence alone

Verdict: yes, with no medical involvement of any kind. Cleansing, steaming, extraction, masks, facial and neck massage, enzyme treatments, product application, waxing and tweezing, makeup, and cosmetic skin analysis are the core of what G.S. 88B-2 describes as skin care. No physician relationship, order, or delegation is required; the esthetician answers to the Board and no one else.

Microdermabrasion and mechanical resurfacing

Verdict: yes, while it stays epidermal. Crystal and diamond-tip microdermabrasion, brushing, and similar mechanical resurfacing are in scope because they abrade the stratum corneum. The epidermal limit is a real condition: an aggressive protocol run to pinpoint bleeding has, by definition, reached the dermis. The instrument does not decide this; the endpoint does.

What documentation this tier still needs

No board requires a chart for a facial. Build one anyway: a record of product, concentration, contact time, endpoint observed, and client response is what distinguishes a superficial peel from a medium-depth one two years later. Absent records, the only surviving account is the client's.

Dermaplaning: In Scope Since 2022, and Narrower Than It Sounds

Dermaplaning is the service whose status actually changed, and the reversal shows how the Board reasons.

Verdict: yes, under the 2022 ruling

Verdict: yes. A licensed esthetician or cosmetologist may perform dermaplaning. The July 25, 2022 ruling brought it within scope on the basis that its intent is skin stimulation, subject to the same FDA-cleared device condition applied to microneedling. Practitioners still working from the August 24, 2020 ruling — and some training materials still are — are years out of date.

What the permission actually covers

The authorised service is manual exfoliation: a sterile blade held at an angle to remove the stratum corneum and vellus hair — a mechanical, epidermal, cosmetic act that fits the Board's test cleanly.

Where the blade stops being cosmetic art

The same blade becomes a medical instrument the moment its purpose changes. Using it to remove a lesion, pare a keratosis, treat a diagnosed condition, or cut into living tissue is not dermaplaning within cosmetic art scope — it is a procedure on human tissue, and under § 90-18 that is the practice of medicine. The distinction is not the tool or the training but the intent, which is the Board's own test applied consistently. An esthetician who notices a lesion should refer, and should document the referral rather than an assessment of what the lesion is, which edges toward the diagnosis prohibition.

Microneedling: In Scope to the Cap, Medicine Beyond It

Microneedling is the hardest call on a North Carolina menu — not because the rule is unclear, but because the same device performs a cosmetic or a medical service depending on how it is set.

Verdict at and under the reported cap

Verdict: yes, with an FDA-cleared device, at or below the reported 1.0 mm ceiling. A licensed esthetician may perform mechanical microneedling under the 2022 ruling, on three conditions: the device is FDA-cleared for the indication, it is operated within manufacturer guidelines, and the intent remains cosmetic skin stimulation rather than treatment of a condition.

That third condition is the one practices breach unintentionally, and they breach it in marketing rather than in the treatment room. A menu offering microneedling "for acne scarring" or "to treat melasma" has described a therapeutic intent for a diagnosed condition. The needle depth may be perfectly compliant while the service description is not.

Beyond the cap: the same device, a different legal category

Verdict: no, not on an esthetics licence at any depth above the cap. Past the ceiling the service is a cosmetic medical procedure: physician, PA, or NP, or an RN on a prescriber's order under the NCBON position statement. No supervision arrangement lets an esthetician run deeper — the Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners cannot license anyone to practise medicine, and the NCMB has approved no delegation of cosmetic procedures to cosmetic art licensees. A few states do let a physician delegate medical-depth aesthetic work to an esthetician acting as an unlicensed assistant; North Carolina has published no such framework, and assuming otherwise is an unforced error. Our microneedling scope of practice guide compares those models directly.

RF microneedling is not the same service

Verdict: no. RF microneedling is regularly and wrongly treated as microneedling with an upgrade. It is a different service in kind: it delivers thermal energy into the dermis through the needles, and dermal thermal injury is the therapeutic mechanism, not an unwanted consequence. That puts it past the epidermal limit by design, and the systems are medical devices rather than the cosmetic pens the 2022 ruling contemplated. Treat it as a physician, PA, NP, or ordered-RN service.

What a compliant microneedling file contains

Because the compliant and non-compliant versions of this service look identical afterwards, the file is the whole defence:

• The device's 510(k) clearance number and cleared indications, plus the manufacturer's instructions for use.
• A written protocol stating the maximum depth permitted on the esthetics licence, and who may exceed it under what authority.
• Per-treatment records of the actual depth setting used by region, not just the service name.
• Consent describing the service in cosmetic terms, matching how it is marketed, plus dated device-specific training records.
• Single-use cartridge and sanitation records for implements contacting broken skin.

Chemical Peels: North Carolina Regulates Intent, Not Percentage

Peels generate more scope questions than any other service, and nearly all ask the wrong one.

Superficial peels: in scope

Verdict: yes. Peels that exfoliate the epidermis are within scope: glycolic and lactic and other alpha hydroxy acids, beta hydroxy acid, enzyme peels, and light Jessner and low-strength TCA formulations applied for epidermal exfoliation. Practitioners commonly work to a range including modified Jessner solutions and TCA under 20 percent, a reasonable operating guide.

Medium-depth peels: out of scope

Verdict: no. A medium-depth peel is defined by its effect — controlled injury reaching the papillary dermis — which is past the epidermal limit, whatever agent got it there. In a med spa it is a cosmetic medical procedure: physician, PA, or NP, or an RN on a prescriber's order with documented competency and written emergency policies.

Deep peels: unambiguously medical

Verdict: no, and not close. Phenol and other deep peels reach the reticular dermis, carry systemic cardiac risk requiring monitoring, and are physician-level procedures.

Why there is no percentage to hide behind

North Carolina publishes no table of permitted acids and concentrations, and operators looking for one are asking a question the state does not answer. The reason is sound: percentage does not determine depth. A 20 percent TCA in one pass to light frost is superficial; the same solution layered to a solid frost reaches the dermis. pH, free acid value, prep, passes, contact time, and skin type all move the endpoint.

So the Board's test does the work here too. A peel intended and performed to exfoliate the epidermis is cosmetic art; one intended to injure into the dermis to remodel it is a medical procedure, whatever the bottle says. The documentation consequence is specific: record the endpoint you observed, not just the product. "Level 1 frost, 2 passes, neutralised at 4 minutes" evidences a superficial service. "TCA peel" evidences nothing. Our skin and laser compliance guide covers what a defensible peel protocol contains.

Lasers and IPL: A Different Board, a Different Licence

Lasers are where North Carolina is least like the states around it, and where a wrong assumption is most expensive. Two independent barriers stand between an esthetics licence and a laser, and clearing one does nothing about the other.

Barrier one: NCMB Position Statement 5.1.2 makes it surgery

NCMB Position Statement 5.1.2, Laser Surgery, states the Board's position that the revision, destruction, incision, or other structural alteration of human tissue using laser technology is surgery — to be performed only by a physician, or by a licensed health care professional working within their own professional scope with appropriate medical training, under the supervision, preferably on-site, of a physician.

Read that delegation language precisely; it is narrower than the industry treats it. The delegate must be a licensed health care professional working within their own professional scope. An esthetician is not a health care professional under North Carolina's licensing scheme, and operating a laser is not within cosmetic art scope, so this route does not reach an esthetician at all.

What the position statement requires where delegation is available

Where the service is delegated to someone who can receive it, the statement sets conditions that shape the whole service:

• Hair and tattoo removal should be performed only by a physician or an individual designated as having adequate training and experience by a physician who bears full responsibility for it.
• Each patient must be examined by a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner licensed or approved by the Board before the first treatment, and at other times as medically indicated.
• The supervising physician must provide adequate oversight before and after the procedure, of licensed and unlicensed personnel alike.
• That physician should be on site or readily available to the person performing the procedure, with what counts as readily available depending on the circumstances.

Barrier two: the device class exclusion, independently

Even setting the Medical Board aside, the Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners excludes FDA class 3, 3A, 3B and 4 devices and any radiation-emitting device from cosmetic art scope, and every aesthetic laser and IPL system is a radiation-emitting device. So the answer is no from the cosmetic side before the medical side is reached — which is why "our medical director supervises it" is not a fix. Supervision addresses the NCMB's concern; it does nothing about the exclusion.

Laser hair removal has its own licence entirely

Here is the structure that surprises nearly everyone. Laser hair removal runs through Chapter 86B and the North Carolina Board of Barbers and Electrolysis Examiners, a third board unrelated to cosmetic art:

• A laser hair practitioner must first hold an electrology licence.
• They may perform it only under the supervision of a physician licensed in North Carolina to perform surgical services, with a supervisory agreement in place before the licence issues.
• Services may be performed only after a physician or other NCMB-licensed practitioner has examined the patient, including a history and focused skin examination to identify abnormalities that might be altered by a laser beam.
• The supervising physician must be readily available during services to respond to emergencies and questions.
• At least 10 hours of continuing education annually are required.
• The licence covers laser hair removal, not tattoo removal, which stays with the medical side.

The practical consequence: an esthetician who wants to perform laser hair removal here does not need extra training or a supervising physician bolted onto their existing licence. They need a different licence from a different board, starting with electrology.

Injectables and the Line an Esthetics Licence Never Crosses

Short, because the answer admits no variations — and stated here because the 2022 ruling is regularly stretched to cover it.

Verdict: never, under any arrangement

Verdict: no, and no supervision model changes it. Administering botulinum toxin or dermal filler is the practice of medicine under § 90-18, which captures both prescribing for and administering to a person. An esthetics licence under Chapter 88B is a cosmetic art credential, not a health care credential, and the Board that issues it cannot permit anyone to practise medicine.

The 2022 ruling is sometimes offered as an opening, on the theory that it shows the Board expanding into needle-based services. It does not reach injections: it addressed two mechanical skin-stimulation services performed with a device and said nothing about administering a prescription drug. Injectables belong to physicians, PAs, and NPs, and to RNs and LPNs working on a prescriber's order — the ground our North Carolina Botox guide covers licence by licence.

Where estheticians add real value instead

None of this argues for under-using esthetics staff; the best North Carolina practices do the opposite. A licensed esthetician can own the skin-health programme end to end: cosmetic skin analysis, facials, superficial peels, dermaplaning, microneedling within the cap, home-care regimens, and the pre- and post-treatment care that largely determines whether an injectables patient returns. That role is undermined, not expanded, by drifting outside the licence.

Where Cosmetic Art Becomes a Cosmetic Medical Procedure

Everything above reduces to one boundary, stated so you can apply it to a service the Board has never named.

The four-question test

A skin service stops being cosmetic art and becomes a cosmetic medical procedure in North Carolina when any of these is true:

1. Depth. The service is intended to affect tissue below the epidermis. Dermal injury as the mechanism means medicine, whether the agent is an acid, a needle, or energy.
2. Device. The instrument is an FDA class 3, 3A, 3B or 4 device, or emits radiation. That excludes it from cosmetic art scope by itself.
3. Intent. The purpose is to treat a condition rather than to stimulate or beautify skin — the Board's own test, read against your marketing and notes as much as your protocol.
4. Judgment. The service requires diagnosis or an assessment of a medical condition, which cosmetic art licensees are prohibited from making.

Cross any one and the Cosmetic Art Act stops governing the service and the Medical Practice Act starts. The consequence is not that you need more training — it is that you need a different licensee performing the service.

What the medical side then requires

Once a service is on the medical side, the requirements are documentary and specific. A physician, PA, or NP must evaluate the patient before treatment — the state uses no "good faith exam" phrase, but § 90-18 and the NCMB's prescribing position statements assemble the same requirement, and the NCBON conditions any nurse-performed cosmetic procedure on a prescriber's order. The supervising physician must be competent in what they supervise; the principle running through NCMB guidance is parity between the knowledge and skill of supervisee and supervisor. And the performing professional needs documented, demonstrated competency in the specific procedure — attending a course is not competency.

Straw ownership and the arrangement NCMB is actually investigating

In August 2024 the NCMB published guidance titled Lessons from NCMB's Disciplinary Committee: Are you aiding the unlicensed practice of medicine?, addressing licensees who lend a credential to a business they do not actually control. The Board has separately linked physician supervision to the corporate practice of medicine and reiterated its concern about "straw" practices and licence renting. The skin-services failure mode is recognisable: a medical director signs for the microneedling and peel programme, has never performed either, and does not review the protocols. On the Board's own position that physician should not be supervising at all, and the exposure runs to them as much as to the practitioner.

Building a Compliant North Carolina Skin Menu

A defensible North Carolina skin programme has a recognisable shape.

What remains genuinely unsettled

Three honest caveats, because a guide presenting everything as settled is not useful:

• The 1.0 mm cap is consistently reported and almost certainly reflects the Board's operating position, but we could not confirm the figure appears in the Board's published ruling. It rests on a declaratory ruling rather than a numbered administrative rule — and rulings reverse, as this one already did.
• Medium-depth peels follow from the epidermal limit rather than from a rule naming them. The reasoning is sound and the conclusion conservative, but North Carolina has published no peel-depth rule.
• Legislation is pending, not passed. Senate Bill 808 in the 2025–2026 session would amend the Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners statutes — curriculum hours, a new hair design licence, rules for mobile cosmetic art shops — with sections effective October 1, 2026. As of this writing it has not been enacted and remains in committee. It is not law, and none of its provisions changes the scope boundaries described here. Treat any 2026 guide that says otherwise with suspicion.

The build order

1. Classify every service against the four-question test before it goes on the price list.
2. Set a written maximum depth for esthetician microneedling and hold the file evidencing it — device clearance, protocol, per-treatment settings.
3. Match marketing to scope. Remove condition-treatment language from anything an esthetician performs, and drop "medical esthetician" everywhere.
4. Route lasers correctly: laser hair removal to a Chapter 86B practitioner with an electrology licence and supervisory agreement; other laser and IPL work to a physician, PA, NP, or ordered RN.
5. For every medical-side service, secure a prescriber evaluation and a patient-specific order, and confirm the supervising physician is competent in the procedure itself.
6. Validate competency per technique with observed performance, not a course certificate, and keep written procedure and emergency-response policies.
7. Document endpoints, not product names, on every peel and needling treatment — the single highest-value habit here.
8. Re-verify the declaratory ruling annually with the Board, since this boundary lives in rulings that can move.

If you would rather not assemble the underlying protocols, consent forms, screening tools, and training records from scratch, our library of med spa SOP and protocol templates covers the documentation behind every step above, and the med spa consent forms guide and staff training requirements guide cover the two files a North Carolina complaint investigation reaches for first.

North Carolina esthetician scope in plain terms

• Scope is set by the Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners under Chapter 88B; G.S. 88B-2 defines it only as "skin care."
• The July 25, 2022 declaratory ruling put dermaplaning and microneedling in scope, reversing the August 24, 2020 dermaplaning ruling, on an intent-of-the-service test and an FDA-cleared device condition.
• A 1.0 mm microneedling cap is consistently reported; we could not confirm the figure in the Board's own ruling text and say so.
• Work is limited to the epidermis; licensees may not diagnose injury, illness, or disease; FDA class 3, 3A, 3B and 4 and radiation-emitting devices are excluded.
• Superficial peels are in scope; medium-depth and deep peels are medical, and no percentage table exists.
• NCMB Position Statement 5.1.2 treats laser alteration of tissue as surgery; laser hair removal needs an electrology licence plus a Chapter 86B laser hair practitioner licence.
• Injectables are the practice of medicine under § 90-18 and are never within an esthetics licence.
• Senate Bill 808 (2025–2026) is pending in committee, not enacted, and does not change these boundaries.

For more North Carolina-specific compliance guides as this cluster grows, browse the North Carolina med spa compliance hub.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice. North Carolina scope-of-practice, delegation, and cosmetic art rules are administered by several bodies — the North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners, the North Carolina Medical Board, the North Carolina Board of Nursing, and the North Carolina Board of Barbers and Electrolysis Examiners — and they change over time, including the declaratory rulings, position statements, and pending legislation referenced here. Where North Carolina is silent, where sources conflict, or where we could not verify a figure against the issuing board's own document, we have said so rather than guessed. Confirm current requirements with the relevant board and consult a North Carolina healthcare attorney before making menu, staffing, or ownership decisions.

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