The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Working at Ulta During the Pandemic

I’ve always loved makeup, so when I found myself jobless during a pandemic, I put in an application at my local Ulta Beauty. I’d always thought it would be difficult to get a job working with makeup, so I did a few Google searches to prepare myself for the interview. Some Ulta workers said that they were expected to have perfect hair, nails, and makeup, so I decided it would be best to try looking my best.

I felt disappointed when I arrived and saw that it would be a group interview where we sat in chairs that had been socially distanced from each other. A manager came in and sat across from us with a clipboard. She asked us a series of questions and noted our answers on her clipboard. I’d always felt that I did better during solo interviews, so I didn’t think I’d get the job.

A few days later, a job offer appeared in my email inbox. The offer was for a seasonal job that only paid twelve dollars per hour. The pay was less than I’d expected, but I desperately needed a job, so I accepted it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect on my first day, but I quickly discovered that many store policies had changed due to Covid-19. The first thing I noticed was how different the store looked. The skin pod, where they once did facial services was closed off. Plastic bags were covering the drinking fountain. Most importantly, all the testers were covered with packing tape. This means that there were no testers.

Since there were no testers, customers would open fresh products and use them. The customers who did this would usually have a poor attitude when they were caught. I got used to customers yelling at me that they planned to buy whatever they had opened and finding the product they’d used a few aisles over. They would also demand to know how they were expected to find the right shade when everything was taped shut.

It was worse with products that weren’t sealed. Customers saw the unsealed products, such as Maybelline and Essence, as an invitation to swatch. Products that were sealed with stickers were also opened more often than those in boxes or sealed with plastic.

Some brands sent their testers, which were glued shut or empty. There were a few times I saw customers trying to open these products and one where I’d found a broken display of concealer. I had to throw it out because the edges were sharp and could have hurt a guest.

About six months after they hired me, we could remove the tape from the testers. It was a tedious task that dried out my hands, but I hoped it would stop the customers from ruining so much product.

Now that the testers were back, they presented us with a new set of struggles. The day after we removed the tape from the testers, a group of teenagers came in and poured foundations all over one display. I often watched in horror as a customer either ruined a display with makeup or applied lipstick directly to their lips. Customers also thought that we could apply makeup directly to their faces and would become annoyed when we informed them that we weren’t able to due to Covid restrictions.

The testers weren’t the only thing affected by the pandemic. When I was hired, we were under a mask mandate, so I only knew what the top half of my coworkers’ faces looked like. The first time one of my coworkers added me to social media, I wasn’t sure who she was. I’d never seen her face because we had to wear masks, so I had to look at her profile to figure out who she was.

We also had to tell customers they needed to wear masks inside of the store. Some of them put masks on, some left, and a few threw temper tantrums. One memorable customer threw a lipstick across the counter at me as she left, another poured a milkshake on multiple associates’ cars. We heard lots of colorful language and lots of excuses about the mask mandate.

Dealing with their behavior was exhausting, especially since a handful of them called corporate to complain about being asked to wear a mask. A few of those customers decided to lie, like the woman who claimed to have been physically pushed from the store because she refused to wear a mask.

Ulta also relaxed its makeup policy because of the pandemic. Most of my coworkers no longer wore makeup daily, and I was grateful that my hair and makeup didn’t need to be perfect. Some of my coworkers only wore makeup when the district manager was visiting. One of my coworkers told me that before the pandemic, they’d been expected to wear at least three makeup products per day.

Unfortunately, the position I held at Ulta was only part time, so I didn’t get any benefits. I wasn’t eligible for much-needed PTO, so I tried my best to never call in and hoped that I wouldn’t get sick. Despite my dedication to the company, they did not give me many hours. It became increasingly hard to pay my bills. At one point, they only gave me ten hours a week. I had to reach out for help to buy my dog’s food. Paying my bills was also a struggle, and sometimes I wondered how I would make it.

Despite barely getting any hours, the company was constantly hiring new people. The new people were being given a higher rate of pay than the people who had been working at the company before them. This upset me, especially after my car broke down and I had to use my limited funds to take an Uber to work. I reached out to Ulta’s associate relief fund for help, but they declined to offer me any aid. Ultimately, financial issues were the reason I sought to leave Ulta.

Despite the low pay and limited hours, the robberies were probably the worst part of working at Ulta. A group of masked thieves would usually come in and fill a basket or bags with fragrances and then leave in under a minute. We were told not to approach the thieves because sometimes they carried weapons or would threaten physical violence. I would usually retreat to the back of the store when they came in, just in case someone challenged them, and things became violent. To my knowledge, the thieves were never caught.

Disclaimer: I no longer work with this company, but these are my personal experiences. Not all Ulta employees will have the same experiences as I had working for the company. Like any job, this one had its trials.