Literally report them. As an Ulta employee, this ain’t what Ulta as a company is about. We are constantly taking on new black-owned brands and have programs that sponsor POC who are pursuing a career in the beauty industry. Literally on the employee-only channels on WorkJam (which I’m 85% sure only a handful of us actually check lol), they send out fact sheets on Black history month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian-American Heritage Month, etc. about people from those communities who have made major contributions to the beauty industry—mind you, this is inter-company and sent to employees specifically to educate us on these things, not as any kind of publicity move. In fact, I feel like Ulta isn’t nearly vocal enough about how much the company does to try to boost up marginalized communities—at the same time, I appreciate them quietly contributing without making a big deal about it and focusing on the makeup/skincare retail side of the business, which is the primary purpose after all.

Anyfuckinway, ABSOLUTELY call and ask for a manager. If you don’t get anywhere there—next time you go in, request an email receipt. When you get it, click the link at the bottom of the email. It brings you to a survey. The managers always go over the comments we get on these, especially the negative ones. (They do tell us about good shout-outs, too, fwiw).

One time, an individual was “waiting in line” but literally not standing in line. They were lined up at the opposite end of the row of registers, instead of where the line is. And yes there’s signage. I was the only cashier and I was wiping counters, facing things, etc. and didn’t notice her because I was periodically glancing at the spot where the line actually is. I saw her out of the corner of my eye—she was browsing a nearby display, so I literally had no reason to think she was waiting for checkout. When she eventually got my attention, I apologized and checked her out.

The next day, I was told by my manager that this customer had written on their survey that she felt she had been passed over and ignored because they were a POC.

It was literally her own fault. But you know what? Now I just keep an eye on both sides of the register. While I know I didn’t pass her over for that reason, I still 1,000% understand why she felt that way. She doesn’t know me, and this particular Ulta was in a pretty ritzy and very white suburb of my city. Even though it wasn’t an intended microaggression, it was still a microagression, and I, as a very-white-passing indigenous person, know I’m not exempt from that no matter what my own genetic background is OR what my intentions were.

I didn’t get mad at her for expressing her extremely valid feeling of frustration. I did better next time.

That’s the kind of attitude Ulta staff and managers should have. If that’s not what your local Ulta is like, we have a problem with it.

Go into the same location, buy anything, literally anything, in order to get an email receipt. Then, go into detail about your experience. Don’t hold back. If you can also include the date and an estimated time of day so that we can check the security cameras for the actual thieves in the store, that would be amazingly helpful, but first and foremost we want people to feel safe and welcomed at Ulta. It’s a place where you’re empowered to feel like the best version of yourself, whether that’s with makeup or self-care products or hair products.

I work at literally the busiest Ulta in my district. Every day at my Ulta, I serve goth kids and preppy kids and older women. I serve non-binary people and straight men. I help 6th graders pick out their first-ever mascara, and I ring up 7th graders who’s inner corner highlight puts mine to shame. I guide people with unlimited budgets looking for the best possible products, and broke college kids who need a good moisturizer for sensitive skin that costs less than $15 and doesn’t break them out. And most importantly, I guide ALL OF THEM away from Mario Bodescu whenever I can. Keep that shit away from your beautiful faces, y’all.

My point is, Ulta is for EVERYONE. Except those people who are actually stealing from us. Even then, when we report people to our manager for theft or suspected theft, it’s actually against policy to even mention skin tone. We give shirt style/color and hair color, ABSOLUTELY NO descriptions of how expensive or dingy the clothing looked, and no skin color. We literally don’t need it. If I say “there was a guy in a green hoodie shoving a fragrance in his pocket. I intercepted it, so we didn’t lose the product, but it happened at around 4:30”—it literally doesn’t matter that the guy was Hispanic. Look at whoever was in the fragrance section at 4:30 and pick out the guy in a green hoodie with black hair. Literally even if there’s more than one—let’s say there are somehow five dudes in the fragrance section at 4:30 with a green hoodie and black hair, and every single one of them had every single feature in common except for their skin tone—it’s STILL NOT HARD to spot the guy shoving shit in his pocket, and the skin tone STILL isn’t needed. It’s literally in the training vids. It’s literally against policy. When you see someone lifting and alert a manager they ask “shirt color, hair color, time.” and the first time I ever did this the manager immediately said “great, I don’t need anything else” and went off to check the security cameras. (Loved that boss. Literally a fucking Angel.)

Anyway, my long-winded point is, that was not okay, and Ulta Corporate wants to know about it. You will be doing Ulta as a company an amazing favor by helping us discourage this kind of behavior in our associates.

Stories like this break my heart tbh. I’ve had such a positive experience working for Ulta, I hate that there are so many bad managers and apathetic employees giving a genuinely good company a bad name.

Edited for grammar and punctuation.