May an esthetician or laser technician perform microneedling in Michigan?
Oversight · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
Not on an esthetician license alone — skin care services are capped at the stratum corneum and microneedling isn't in the list that defines the license; the cited rules leave open only performance as a physician's delegate under the delegation statute.
✅ Michigan answers this with a hard depth ceiling, in one sentence. Having listed the skin care services an esthetician or cosmetologist may perform, the statute closes: “As applicable, a skin care service described in subsection (2) must be limited to an individual’s stratum corneum.” Microneedling is designed to puncture past that layer, and it appears nowhere in the list of permitted services.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 339.1210(3) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
Related Michigan rules
And the permitted list is specific about how far a device may go: exfoliation is “exfoliating only the dead skin cells of an individual, including, but not limited to, in the performance of dermaplaning or microdermabrasion”, and for that “an esthetician or cosmetologist may use a product, chemical, mechanical device, electrical service, or CLASS 1 medical device to exfoliate the dead skin cells.” Light work is bounded too — cleansing or stimulating the skin may use “noninvasive light”. Every device permission in the section is tied to a depth or a class.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 339.1210(2)(b), (2)(e) · verified Sep 2, 2026
The license itself is defined by that list and nothing else: “Esthetician” means “an individual who performs or offers to perform skin care services”, and “Skin Care Services” in turn “includes the services or combination of services described in section 1210(2).” The definition is a pointer, so the enumerated list is the whole scope.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 339.1201(j), (u) · verified Sep 2, 2026
How other states answer this
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← All Michigan rules and changes · 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. Legislative data via LegiScan (CC BY 4.0).