Request By:
Mr. Gene Record
Administrator
Kentucky Board of Barbering
4265 Roosevelt Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40213
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; BY: Richard O. Wyatt, Assistant Attorney General
Please reference your letter to this Office dated March 9, 1982, requesting our opinion concerning the definition of barbering as that term is used in KRS 317.410(2). Specifically, you ask whether a licensed barber may administer a permanent wave to customers.
It is the opinion of this Office that a licensed barber may administer a permanent wave to customers.
The term barbering is defined in KRS 317.410(2) as the practice upon the human neck and head, ". . . principally of shaving or trimming the beard or cutting the hair. . . [emphasis added]." Principally does not mean exclusively. Further, the statutory definition of barbering continues to list specific practices which are included within that broad definition. Nothing in that statutory language indicates that the listing was intended to be all inclusive and to thereby exclude any practice which was not specifically mentioned. The definition is inclusive in nature, not exclusive. Permanent waving of a customer's hair constitutes a practice upon the human neck and head as those terms are used in KRS 317.410(2).
Further, permanent waving of hair involves: the giving of treatments with chemical preparations, a procedure specifically included in KRS 317.410(2)(a) and (c), and the use of rods and chemical preparations to arrange hair, a procedure specifically included in KRS 317.410(b).
The fact that the term cosmotology as defined in KRS 317A.010(2) also includes the practice of giving permanent waves to customers does not alter the fact that the statutory definition of barbering also includes such practice. A plain reading of these two definitions reveals very little difference in the activities constituting the two definitions.
So much of our previous opinion, OAG 75-629, as may be inconsistent with this opinion, is hereby withdrawn.