Ulta Beauty — Local services in Downey

I have hesitated sending in this review but I think it needs to be known. I booked an appointment for April 1st for 4 people to get formal hair and makeup done for a very important event. I booked it 7 weeks in advance, explained that we wanted to get our hair and makeup done at the same time, so 2 doing hair, 2 doing makeup and then switch. I went in and took the pictures of our styles to make sure that they could achieve the looks to which they said they were easy, and would be able to do it without any problems. I even called the night before and confirmed the appointments, made sure that there would be no issues. When we got there, there were only 2 appointments booked, so immediately stressful because we needed to get all of our makeup and hair done. FIRST OF ALL, instead of having their own makeup, THEY USE SAMPLES FROM AROUND THE STORE!!!! It immediately disgusted me, I felt like throwing up even time the makeup touched my face but I had really no other options so I was stuck. The stylist who did my makeup asked which kind of makeup I used (tarte because my face gets dry) and proceeded to pack on MAC which immediately separated on my face. It wasn't until I told her that she considered changing it. She was going to let me leave like that!! So upsetting. The eye style I wanted was a light brown with gold glitter and I walked out of there with purple eyeshadow with uneven half circles on my eyelids. My MIL had to have the stylist fix her makeup because they packed on SO MUCH black and her liner was so uneven. The stylist was even rushing to finish because her next client was there, BUT I BOOKED SO FAR IN ADVANCE!!! My SIL, who was supposed to get her hair curled by an actual stylist got curled by a new stylist, ON HER FIRST SHIFT, wanted beach curls, so they curled her with a curling iron, set it, and when she took it out, it was as straight as paper. The birthday girl wanted a half updo with curls and they curled her hair, let it cool, and then set it, so when they took the curls down, they were straight as well. My MIL wanted a soft curled ponytail and walked out with a poly tail that looked wet, heavy, and nothing like the pictures. I felt so bad, my MIL was in tears, crying in the chair, and she paid so much money for all of that and I just feel like its not right that they provided such terrible service. What made me more upset is that I took in pictures, samples of what we wanted and the makeup artist told my SIL "we don't do styles like that, we do more simple day-to-day makeup, you should've booked with MAC if you wanted that type of formal makeup". THEN DON'T ADVERTISE THAT SERVICE IF YOU CANNOT FOLLOW THROUGH!!

Moral of the story, do not go here for any services, they do not care to...

Went to the store today to buy some tweezers and I saw that they had mini blue tweezers on sale for $14.40 that I wanted. While I was paying, the register showed they were $16 regular price so I asked the worker shouldn’t they be on sale for $14.40 because there is a sticker that says that. She goes to back to check the pricing. She brings the a sticker that shows $16 sale price and says the sale ended the yesterday that is why the register is showing $16. So i asked her, if the sale ended yesterday why hasn’t the store removed the stickers. She replied, they usually remove them the night before. But…OBVIOUSLY that didn’t happened. then she made up some story by saying, the tweezers I wanted which were the (blue mini tweezers) were placed in the wrong spot, because regular price there are $18 which didn't make sense to me because they were ringing for $16 original price. So while she held the tweezers i grabbed. I went back to where i found the them took a picture to show the placement and the rest of sales stickers to show her what i saw and where the rest of blue ones were placed, under the $14.40 sales sticker. I showed her the picture and she said “oh those stickers are for the items above it. I said ma’am the items above the sticker are eye-curlers and not tweezers. Sale sticker clearly say “tweezers”. Like what???? This store lacks good customer service skills. This lady Samantha was gaslighting the whole issue , was not apologetic for the confusion of the sales stickers and didn’t honor the price. 👎👎👎👎 shame on you Ulta for having these kind of people on the floor...

My sister booked an appointment with the ULTA team under the impression that they were prepared to handle her curls with care. Tonight is her prom and she had the absolute worst experience here. They were not at all equipped or capable of styling her hair, YET, they proceeded to tussle around and tangle her hair into a big fuzzy mess for two hours until they finally gave up and gave my sister their sincerest apologies. She was on a time crunch and had to rush home, unable to even style her hair herself because of how bad they left it. My mom had to cut all these knots and braids that they "styled". If they knew that they would not have been able to style her type of hair, WHY did they proceed to pick at her head for two hours????? We would have understood if they had told her from the jump that they couldn't style her type of hair. We would have been less upset if they had been honest, instead they made everything so much worse. We're appalled at the service she received today. ULTA should not advertise that they work with all types of hair if they do not. If your hair is anything other than pin straight, don't come here. The only reason I gave it one star is because they had enough decency to not charge her for anything. The team seemed very apologetic about what happened, as they should have been. Don't call yourself a hair stylist if you can't work with all hair types. Terrible, terrible experience for my sister to have on...