I've been going to ulta for years to get my hair cut and colored. I never left there unhappy with the outcome, until my last visit. I booked my appointment online at 8:30 am, for a 7pm appointment. I did not choose a specific stylist because I only had a week before school and I always had good experiences no matter which stylist I got. When I arrived at 6:50pm the woman at the salon counter told me it would be a few moments for the stylist to finish up on her client before getting to me. I was fine with this, I was early and didn't mind shopping around. However, after a a few minutes became 15, I was a little ancy. Then a half hour came and I was a little annoyed. It was now 7:20 and I was still not in the chair. I had a store manager come up to me and ask if I needed help and she wondered what time my appt was. I told her and she walked back to the stylist, glanced at her progress, and then assured me it wouldn't be much longer. She didn't even ask the stylist how much longer to expect. Still, 15 more minutes passed before I finally got some service. I didn't actually get into the chair until 7:30 pm, 40 minutes after I arrived, and the stylist proceeded to tell me she "didn't know she had any other appointments", so she didn't time her work properly (even though I booked my appointment very early that morning and received a confirmation). This was frustrating because I now felt like she may rush on my hair since the store was closing in an hour and a half. After showing the stylist several photos of what I wanted and verbally explaining it, we were still having issues communicating. This stylist had a very thick accent and I don't think she fully understood what I was saying, as well as it was difficult for me to understand her. I came in wanting a dimensional brown with some deep red low lights. She seemed very confused with the term "low lights" and kept pointing to ashy browns even after I explained I wanted something warmer. Finally after a while of trying to explain and almost giving up we found a neutral dark brown color base with a nice auburn for accent pieces. She said it would be like a color melt, and I was satisfied with this; however I was still very flustered that it took so long for me to communicate to this stylist, I never had such difficulty. Both of us kept checking the time now that we spent so long deciding on what colors, it was about 8 pm before she began putting color on me. I was there until after the store closed, we didn't finish until about 9:30 pm. After all of that, I was hoping for a nice result. But... I ended up with a blank brown hair color with some random golden blonde chunks, there is no red accents like I asked for, and it is not dimensional at all. It is definitely not a color melt either. It seems like very choppy color and I feel like I wasted so much of my money to be so unsatisfied. The woman said I could return during one of her shifts to get it "re toned" in the next two days if I didn't like it. Unfortunately i worked for the next 5 days in a row and really didn't feel that toning would fix what happened. I also didn't want to return to this same stylist or even the same location. Why would I want her to fix my hair when I can't trust she will do a good job or even understand what I want? I was very upset since my senior year of college was beginning and I wanted a fresh look before it began. I called the Amherst location to see if I could come there to get my hair fixed that upcoming weekend before school started and they told me there is a policy that the person that did the hair or that specific stores manager must be the one to fix, or else it won't be a complimentary correction. I found this frustrating because my entire experience at the orchard park ulta was not good, I did not want to return there. I wanted to go to Amherst where I knew a different stylist that I've had great results with. I will not be back to this place after years of being a customer. A loyal customer who has an appointment should not have to wait 40 minutes, nor should they have such a struggle to communicate with their stylist, and end up with poor results. Very unhappy. If you are going to go to this ulta I recommend Britney and Ashely if they still work here. I have had them as stylists at the old location and they are both professional, kind, prompt, and always deliver good results. Otherwise, steer clear.
Update: It's been a full month now and I can clearly see the chunks of uneven highlighting getting more and more visible. My hair has faded significantly but I still don't know how to even fix it at this point so I'm not doing anything to it. It feels damaged and gross. read more