Ulta Beauty — Local services in Spring Hill

So, I decided to go to Ulta back in July of this year to go from my blue hair to blonde. I had never dyed it blue before and I didn't honestly thing the process would be that hard. When I got to the appointment, the stylist did a consultation and said it would cost about $200 and be a 3 hour visit. I didn't have the time that day so I instead got turqoise put in my hair and made a visit 10 weeks out to last Saturday.

Saturday rolls around and in the consultation I tell the stylist I wanted to go blonde from the blue and she tells me that it would be hard and that it will look somewhat gray. It's fine, I say, thinking that it would be all over gray and the next visit we'll get it lighter. So my hair goes from a faded turquoise to this gray-green color, barley lightened at all. She used bleach, did foils, a gloss treatment and let me tell you, it was the worst $200 hot mess I've ever seen. The first photo below is what my hair looked like after my visit. Because this is only a front picture, you can't tell but the stylist did not work on the hair on the back of my head at all, only the front. That's why the color varies so much and isn't consistent throughout.

After thinking about how to handle it, I thought best to call the salon back to talk to them about it. I prefaced that I was not a cosmetologist so I understand that I don't know much about hair color but that I had an expectation that was clearly not met. The salon manager was very nice, in explaining to me that vivid colors like blue are very hard to get out of hair. She told me that it would take SIX TO EIGHT VISITS to get my hair blonde from blue and that it was a very expensive process and that if they knew a better way to remove hair color, they would do it. She spoke to my stylist to find out what methods she used and said that she didn't feel comfortable lightening my hair more because it would be damaging to my hair. She did offer a clarifying shampoo treatment to compensate ($20 service) which I did not end up doing. I honestly wanted my money back.

So, after my disappointing phone conversation I felt pretty frustrated. I had spent 3 hours, $200 and now my hair has looked the worst I've ever had it and I'm told it'll be 6 or 8 more session to fix it. I don't think so. I did some research online trying to find some other solution besides bleaching my hair every 6 weeks. I found a product called a Color Lifter that is made especially for lifting vivid hair color out of your hair and it DOESN'T INVOLVE BLEACH AND ISN'T $200. I went to Sally's Beauty Supply in Franklin and bought a color lifter by Beyond The Zone for $4 and a cream developer for $6. For $10 I lightened my hair without bleach, without ammonia and it took 45 minutes instead of 3 hours and was not damaging to my hair. The color lifter worked so much better than bleach because guess what? My hair is already blonde underneath and all I'm doing is removing the blue.

I will never go back to this salon. I've been trimming my hair for 2 years before I went back to a salon and I'm just going to go back to doing that again. While I was at Sally's I also purchased some bleach so in 5 weeks I'll do that too. I honestly feel like their mistake was a way to get me to be a repeat customer so that they could keep 'fixing' my hair. I love their products but the customer service response to this was just...

I've loved this store, but today was just terrible. I came to Ulta to buy some La Roche Posay products because Ulta had a $5 off a $40 purchase coupon, I wanted to use my points, and the products are HSA eligible. They didn't have the face wash I was looking for even though the app said it was in stock. The employee that helped me said that happens a lot. Okay, maybe that should be addressed then??

I got their Effaclar toner and serum. When I got to the register the employee didn't even know how to split the payment between two cards. The manager came up and I was able to use the remaining amount on my HSA card, then covered the rest with my debit card. The remaining amount seemed high, so I asked if the points were being used and she said yes. It showed something like $22 off the purchase so I paid and left.

Once I got home I looked at the receipt and my membership points weren't used on the purchase 😐 I called the store and they said if I came back to the store they could refund the initial purchase, ring the products up again, then use my membership points on the second purchase. So I made an unnecessary trip back to Spring Hill to get this issue fixed.

When I walked in and explained the issue they looked at me like they didn't know what to do with this problem. they were different associates One of them started the process after I explained what the person on the phone said would be done. She refunded the amount to each card, then started the second purchase. When she was ringing the products up for the corrected total I asked if the $5 coupon would be applied to this transaction as well, she said no because it was a single use coupon. I said sure, but I wouldn't be making this second transaction if the points were used the first time like I asked. She said it's how it works in their system and there was nothing she could do. So the $5 coupon was just used for nothing 🙄

Once the items were scanned and my points were used like I asked, I tried charging my HSA card the exact amount as before...and the transaction wasn't completed. I'm assuming because the refunded amount wasn't posted to our HSA account immediately. So because the first transaction was done incorrectly I'm having to pay out of my bank account for the full total 🙃

It felt like they thought I was the problem, when I just wanted to get these higher cost products at the best price. My points weren't used initially, I had to make a second trip to the store, I lost the $5 coupon, and I had to pay out of pocket for the products. Talk about...

The store, the staff, the experience - COMPLETE TRASH.

-I went down every single aisle. Not once did anyone see if I needed help. Honestly, I could've used a bag - it was pretty evident I was struggling every other minute. Not an employee in sight. -So many items were not in the correct spots. -Prices just didn't exist for some of the products, or sale signs were put with the wrong items/brands -Signs were falling down - I fixed a couple of them. -Stock boxes were left in the middle of random aisles. -Items not "faced", very disorganized -A beeping started and kept going for about 5 minutes. -The "showcase" product for today had a display half set up - advertising 30 new colors! Yet 4 measly boxes were thrown into the middle of it all. I ended up having to go with an alternative, basically ruining the initial reason I went there in the first place. -Some of the testers they had available were disgusting, some very very very old or exploded. -There was one spot that I managed to find tissues, which happened to be somewhat near the only spot I found a trash can. -I was not impressed with the products being offered in any way; the scrubs smelt foul, I'm not buying a fake pumpkin decoration for $30 at a beauty store, and I think Ulta should stop trying to break into the candle market. -If I get asked one more time to get an Ulta Credit Card, I might break something. I've said no for 10 years now. -The employee who "helped" check me out seemed like she didn't know the simple phrase "Do you have a phone number with us?", instead stared blankly around and then while still avoiding eye contact said "Number?" And then interrupted me when I was trying to answer. -There was absolutely no customer service provided, NOT EVEN asking if I found everything okay. (Part of me is actually glad they didn't ask this question though because at this point I was about to actually give up and not buy anything).

I worked at 2 different Ulta's for over 5 years on the west coast. NEVER in retail or customer service is most of my list okay at all. I was hoping for just a pleasant little trip to see some new things and get my foundation on sale. Instead, it was a loud, smelly, scavenger hunt.

I will say the storms are bad today - but I don't really think that should affect their bare minimum standards - it sure...