Scope check
Who may lawfully perform this, in this state?
Checked against the rule the state actually wrote down — quoted, cited, and linked at source. This compares a procedure against a published limit; it is not a judgement about what a treatment does to skin, and it is not legal advice.
Our scope corpus holds rules read at source for 51 states across 9 service categories. Coverage is uneven and we show you which you are in on every answer. Where we have not read a rule we say so — we never treat our silence as the state's permission.
New Jersey · Chemical peel · Rule on record
We have read and cited this state's own rule for chemical peel. The verdict below rests on that text, linked at source so you can verify it.
NJ gates on peel depth, which was not supplied.
New Jersey draws the line at the stratum corneum rather than the epidermis, which is stricter than most depth states, and routes anything past the epidermis to the unlicensed-practice-of- medicine statute rather than to a board penalty.
- NJ permits up to "Very superficial" for Esthetician. Supply the product's own depth designation — we will not infer depth from a percentage.
- Nothing may act below the stratum corneum so as to affect the living cells of the epidermis. Anything penetrating beyond the epidermis is a medical act under N.J.S.A. 45:9-2.
- Our text for this rule was read at a republisher because NJ publishes no official online text: New Jersey Office of Administrative Law states “LexisNexis provides free online public access to the semi-monthly updated version of the New Jersey Administrative Code at http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/njcode. Please note that the online version of the Code is not the official Code.” (https://www.nj.gov/oal/rules/accessp, 2026-09-09). Its currency is unconfirmed against any regulator copy because none is published; confirm with the state board or counsel before relying on it.
The rule this rests on
Perform or offer to perform massaging, cleansing or stimulating of the skin, with or without cosmetic preparations, by hand, mechanical or electrical appliances, below the stratum corneum, thereby affecting the living cells of the epidermis
N.J. Admin. Code § 13:28-2.15(b)(2) (Prohibited practices — “A practicing licensee shall not:”) · verified 2026-08-29 · read at source
MedSpaRadar is regulatory monitoring and reference: it summarizes public laws, regulations and agency actions and links each to its source. It is not legal, medical, or compliance advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. A summary can lag its source or leave out detail, and monitoring itself can be interrupted — so an absence of alerts means nothing reached you, not that nothing happened. Read the cited source, check its effective date, and confirm any change to your operations or clinical practice with qualified health-law counsel and your medical director.
Where the corpus is deep, and where it isn’t
Read this before you rely on a quiet answer. A category with few states behind it is a category where we will more often tell you we don’t know — which is the correct answer, and not the same as a green light.
| Procedure | States with a rule on record |
|---|---|
| Injectable (neuromodulator, dermal filler) | 46 |
| Energy device (laser, IPL, RF, plasma, ultrasound) | 39 |
| Microneedling / collagen induction | 38 |
| Hair removal (laser / IPL) | 35 |
| Chemical peel | 34 |
| Micropigmentation / permanent makeup | 34 |
| Mechanical exfoliation (dermaplaning, microdermabrasion) | 33 |
| Sclerotherapy | 29 |
| Body contouring (cryolipolysis, RF, ultrasound) | 17 |
Every rule behind these answers is read at an official source and cited. The wider cited corpus — supervision, good-faith exams, ownership and CPOM, advertising — lives on the state pages, and how we decide what to publish is written down in the methodology.
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