{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/shampooers/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Shampooers",
    "soc_code": "39-5093",
    "category": "Personal Care",
    "us_employment": 8070,
    "median_annual_wage": 32600
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 58,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 6,
    "trust_premium": 11,
    "judgment_accountability": 4
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "At 18, nearly every minute of the shift — positioning a client's neck on the sink ledge, testing water temperature against your own wrist, working lather through hair that mats differently on every head, rinsing behind the ears without soaking the cape — has no digital substitute, and the only reason it isn't a 20 is that appointment intake, reminder texts, and retail product notes are already off your hands and onto the salon's booking system.",
    "embodiment": "A 19 reflects that you spend the day standing at a wet station with your forearms in warm water and product, adjusting to each client's scalp sensitivity, mobility limits, and hair length by touch — an uncontrolled, fluid-soaked environment with a live person in it, short of 20 only because the sink itself is a fixed, familiar station rather than a new site every job.",
    "liability_shield": "6 recognizes that many states require a shampoo technician permit or limited-scope license covering sanitation and chemical handling — real paperwork, and real grounds for a board complaint if a client gets a chemical burn — but the salon's licensed cosmetologist or owner absorbs the consequence, and several states require nothing of you at all.",
    "trust_premium": "11 is the level where regulars ask for you by name and will wait for your hands at the bowl, but the relationship is anchored to the stylist who cuts and colors — clients book the chair, not the sink, so your rapport supplements someone else's client list rather than constituting the service being purchased.",
    "judgment_accountability": "4 fits work that runs on set procedure — the stylist specifies the shampoo and conditioner, the color-processing timer dictates when you rinse, sanitation rules dictate the rest — leaving you the narrow calls of water temperature and pressure rather than any decision whose outcome you'd have to answer for."
  },
  "rationale": "Washing, conditioning, and scalp-massaging a client's hair at a sink is manual, tactile work on a wet, unpredictable human head — nothing in current language AI or robotics comes close. The exposure isn't AI replacing the hands; it's that the role carries almost no licensure weight (most states need only a shampoo permit or nothing), almost no consequential decision-making, and the only screen-adjacent duties — booking, reminders, product upsell scripts, inventory notes — are exactly what salon software already handles. Scored for the modal salon assistant, not the senior stylist track this job often feeds into.",
  "outlook": "The hands-on work is safe from AI for the full decade, but the job stays low-wage, tip-dependent, and treated as an entry rung — the real move is using it to get licensed rather than staying in it.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State cosmetology boards converting the shampoo-permit tier into a genuine restricted license with mandated hours and personal accountability for chemical-service prep — e.g. requiring a permit holder to sign the client record when applying or rinsing relaxers, bleach, or keratin treatments, and holding them liable for scalp burns. A few boards (Texas, Louisiana) already have distinct shampoo/assistant permits; broadening scope and attaching liability is the plausible move. Countervailing: the live deregulation trend (Institute for Justice-backed bills, Arizona/Iowa/Ohio) is repealing shampoo licenses outright, which lowers this.",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Growth of the scalp-care/'head spa' segment sold as a 60-90 minute human-hands service at $80-200, priced like massage rather than as a $0 add-on to a cut. Japanese-style head spas expanding in US metros are already doing this, and it makes the washing itself the product customers pay a human for.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Salon software absorbing booking, reminders, upsell prompts and inventory leaves the residual role almost purely tactile and interpersonal — the routine screen tier is small but its removal concentrates what remains. Only worth a point or two; the score is already near ceiling.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal delegation of pre-service scalp and hair assessment to the shampooer — documented checks for contraindications (open lesions, dermatitis, prior chemical damage, porosity) before a color or relaxer service, of the kind some insurers and franchise chains require via patch-test protocols. If the assistant owns and records that call, the role starts carrying a consequential judgment.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Capability dimensions are already near maximum — no realistic upside there. The institutional ceiling is low: 8,070 workers with no national professional body, and the active legislative current is toward repealing shampoo licensure, not deepening it. Realistic top is the high 60s, and most of that gain accrues to workers in premium scalp-care settings rather than to the modal salon assistant."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 13330,
        "wage": 20320
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 13720,
        "wage": 21640
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 12120,
        "wage": 22550
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 8310,
        "wage": 24190
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 9560,
        "wage": 24440
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 7480,
        "wage": 27860
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 7360,
        "wage": 29530
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 8890,
        "wage": 31470
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 8070,
        "wage": 32600
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -39.5,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}