DO NOT WORK HERE - Store Associate Ulta Beauty Employee Review

1.0
Aug 12, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- 25% discount - They don't care if you make liberal use of the testers, especially for fragrance. In fact, we encouraged to wear the latest fragrances. - Fun to look at all the products

Cons

- The pay is absolute crap. I've been working there for almost a year, and have 10 years of retail experience, yet am being paid $8/hour. No increase. - The hours. Simply put, there are none. When I was hired, I and the other recruits were told we'd be working at LEAST 15 hours per week. I think I've work 15 hours maybe once, and only because I was asked to stay late. Otherwise, I rarely work more than 8 hours. - Shifts are ridiculous. I've NEVER worked 1 or 2 hour shifts...until I started at Ulta. At $8 per hour, it's not worth the gas money or bus fare it takes to get there. - Absolutely no recognition, aside from graphs and charts hung on the backroom door. We are rarely praised for our efforts, and constantly reminded to be "efficient". Aka, work yourself until you drop. - The managers are completely unsupportive, and the GM goes out of her way to make more work for us (making a HUGE mess in the back and trash rooms, and expecting us to clean it up). - I was hired as a task team member, which meant doing truck and stock. Come to find out, I'm also expected to sweep and mop floors, clean windows and mirrors, take the garbage out, clean the bathrooms, AND try to re-stock shelves...all in a 2 hour shift. - We're expected to know everything about every product, despite never being trained in product knowledge. We're told to "buy as many different products as you can", which is simply impossible for the wage we're receiving. - Expected to come to work with a full face of makeup, hair done, and wearing nice black or white clothes. Sorry, I don't see the point in spending time on my hair or makeup only to go into work and clean toilets. - Stores are broken down and trashy. Half of our shelves are busted beyond repair, so the products slide right off of them or fall on the products below. Testers are always missing, or unusable. People open products, try them and smush them, then put them back on the shelf, and management REFUSES to let us damage them out. Unless it's shattered into pieces, they tell us to leave it on the shelf, and won't even discount it. I've had so many complaints because someone will go to buy a product, and the only one on the shelf has been open, used, smushed, and put back on the shelf. It's disgusting, and frankly, I'd never shop there. - Hires new people, instead of giving more hours to existing associates. I've worked there almost a year, and have never been trained on register, despite asking every single week. My store JUST hired two new cashiers, instead of training in two people with completely open availability. How does this make sense? - The cherry on top? The absolutely ridiculous time clock policy. I almost lost my job a month into it, because the time clock was malfunctioning, and didn't record almost a week's worth of my punches. I have NEVER come across this policy anywhere else. The manager said once she got so sad when she had to terminate someone due to missed punches. This means you need to GET RID OF THIS POLICY.

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5.0
Apr 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Everyone at my store is amazing, no drama

Cons

Heard other stores can be rough

2.0
May 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

good benefits for full time employees from what I hear. hourly pay if commission goal isn't met which is nice for those building clientele

Cons

this could just be the case for my store, especially because it's a very high volume store, but as a stylist I don't feel valued at all. I expected this to some degree coming to a huge corporate salon, but the biggest issue is that they try to pretend they care about you. but at the end of the day, if you're not meeting the sales they want/growing quickly enough, they don't care about you as a stylist. if you don't already have an established clientele, business is highly unreliable as there is no late cancellation/no show policy. many services are underpriced in my opinion, making it hard to meet their sales goals as an entry level part-time stylist unless fully booked every day. all they care about is getting as many clients in and out and quickly and possible and they hire more stylists than there are chairs, making every day inconsistent and chaotic. the relative stability of hourly pay is commission threshold isn't met seems enticing for stylists still building a clientele, but the hourly pay is wildly inconsistent between stylists, even those of the same tier. as a stylist of over 3 years who moved and is starting over with no clientele, I make over $2 less per hour than a fellow stylist who just got her license a few months ago and started taking clients for the first time last week. you're better off working at a place like Great Clips or Hair Cuttery because at least they're honest about what they are.

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