The Ulta Hair Debate Is Really a Growth Ops Conversation

Black women are talking about Ulta salons all over TikTok right now.

Depending on which side of the conversation you land on, you might hear that Ulta is coming for independent stylists, that clients are being cheap, that hairstylists need to step their customer service up, or that corporate salons could never replace the experience of a good independent stylist.

I think everybody is having part of the conversation.

But from a growth operations standpoint, what interests me most isn't whether Ulta is "better."

It's why the experience suddenly feels easier to buy.

Because sometimes growth isn't about creating something sexier.

Sometimes it's about removing the stuff that makes being your customer harder than it needs to be.

Let's start with what clients are actually responding to

A lot of the Ulta conversation has centered on things that honestly aren't very glamorous:

You can see the services.
You can book online.
There is structured pricing.
There are clear service categories.
You have a general idea of what happens when you get there.
And if something goes completely left, there is a company above the individual stylist that you can contact.

Ulta's current salon experience includes online booking and services across cuts, styling, color, treatments and textured hair. Recent coverage of the viral conversation has specifically highlighted affordability, convenience and the retailer's years of investment in textured-hair education and services.

That sounds basic.

That's the point.

There is less guessing.

And clarity is kind.

Direct is kind, too

One of the most frustrating parts of buying a service is not knowing what you're agreeing to until after you've already started the process.

The rules are buried somewhere.

The price changes depending on something you didn't know to ask about.

You're supposed to arrive with your hair already washed.

There is a deposit policy you didn't see.

You need to DM somebody for the address.

There are six booking hoops before you can even figure out whether an appointment is available.

And I'm all for policies.

Protect your time.

Protect your income.

Have boundaries.

Charge cancellation fees when they make sense.

But there's a difference between having policies and creating an experience where every guardrail seems designed to protect the provider and none of them seem designed to make the customer feel taken care of.

Especially when those policies are one of the first things the customer sees.

Before they understand your expertise.

Before they know what makes you different.

Before they know what the experience is going to feel like.

They're reading:

No refunds.
No cancellations.
No rescheduling within X hours.
Deposit is nonrefundable.
Come washed.
Come detangled.
Don't bring anyone.
Late fee after X minutes.
Appointment canceled after Y.

Again, none of those rules automatically make someone a bad business owner.

The question is:

What protections, conveniences or assurances does the client get?

Easy booking?

Clear pricing?

Clear expectations?

Simple rescheduling?

Responsive communication?

Knowing exactly what's included?

Knowing what happens if something goes wrong?

Customer experience cannot only mean making the provider's life easier.

There has to be something on the other side.

High-value services are relationships, not just transactions

This is also why I talk so much about high-value services as relationships.

When you hire a solo provider, you are not buying from some nameless company.

You are buying from them.

Their expertise.

Their judgment.

Their communication.

Their process.

Their ability to make you feel comfortable handing over your time, money, hair, skin, health, business — or whatever else they are responsible for.

And relationships have to feel mutual.

The provider absolutely deserves boundaries.

The client also deserves clarity, consistency, communication and an experience that feels like somebody thought about them too.

Because people do not feel good when relationships are one-sided.

Now magnify that times ten when money is involved.

If every rule protects the provider, every inconvenience falls on the customer, and every surprise becomes the customer's problem to absorb, eventually the relationship starts to feel one-sided.

And people don't feel good about surprises when money is involved either.

A higher price.

An add-on they didn't understand.

A preparation requirement they didn't see.

A cancellation policy they didn't know existed.

A service that turns out to include much less than they expected.

Even if nobody technically did anything "wrong," the customer can still walk away feeling like:

This is not what I thought I was buying.

It's a little like dating.

You meet somebody on an app.

The conversation is good. You're vibing. You like them.

You've built an expectation of who this person is and what the experience is going to feel like.

Then you meet them in person and…

Well damn.

This is not what I thought I signed up for.

Nobody necessarily committed a crime.

But you're still sitting there feeling like somebody pulled the okie doke.

And now you've spent time you cannot get back.

With a high-value service, it's time and money.

That's why positioning and client experience cannot be separated.

The way you market yourself creates an expectation.

The actual experience either confirms that expectation or breaks it.

Everybody brings something to the relationship

And this isn't just hair.

I remember going to a groomer once.

They were sticklers about being on time, so I made sure I was on time.

Got the dog together.

Got him into the car.

And if you've ever had to convince a dog who has absolutely no interest in participating in your plans to get in the car and go to the groomer, you know that's already an activity.

I drove all the way there, got inside and found out my groomer wasn't coming in.

Her dog had passed away.

And let me be extremely clear:

Cancel the entire day.

That would not even be a question for me. I would be devastated too. Honestly, they probably wouldn't have heard from me for a while either because I don't even know if I could have made the phone call to say those words.

My irritation had nothing to do with her calling off.

My irritation was that the business already knew she wasn't coming and nobody told me before I made the trip.

You could have canceled the appointment.

No problem.

But I had followed the rules.

I protected your time.

Nobody thought about mine.

And that's the distinction.

Everybody is bringing stakes into the relationship.

The business loses income when somebody no-shows.

The customer may have rearranged their schedule.

Taken off work.

Found childcare.

Paid for transportation.

Prepared for the appointment.

Turned down something else.

Driven across town.

Spent money.

Spent time.

Neither side has to be the villain for the experience to be poorly designed.

That's why customer experience matters.

It asks:

Have we designed this relationship in a way that respects what both sides are putting into it?

A corporation has scale. A solo provider has trust.

This is another difference I think is getting lost in the Ulta conversation.

If I have a bad experience with a large company, there is usually another layer between me and the person who provided the service.

A manager.

Customer service.

A refund process.

A corporate policy.

Somebody whose job is to resolve the problem.

And this is the line I keep coming back to:

A corporation has scale to absorb a broken customer relationship.

A solo provider usually doesn't.

A large company can lose me and keep moving.

For a solo provider, reputation, referrals, repeat business and client relationships are a much bigger part of the growth engine.

That doesn't mean clients get to disrespect your boundaries because you're a small business.

It means the relationship itself is an asset that has to be maintained.

The client follows the policies, shows up prepared, respects your time and pays what you've agreed to.

The business communicates clearly, delivers what was promised, creates reasonable policies, handles problems professionally and gives the customer an experience that feels worth what they paid.

That's mutual.

People also feel like they're paying more and getting less

And honestly, this is bigger than beauty.

Consumers are experiencing versions of this everywhere.

Prices go up.

Portions get smaller.

Fees get added.

Service gets reduced.

More responsibility gets pushed onto the customer.

And somehow you're paying more for the privilege.

One of our favorite Italian restaurants did this recently.

Prices went up.

And the amount of food we got went way down.

Could we afford the higher price?

Yes.

But that's not the same question as:

Did it still feel worth it?

That's the question consumers are asking everywhere right now.

And that same psychology absolutely shows up with services.

If your prices increase while the customer feels like the experience is getting harder, less convenient or giving them less, they're going to notice.

That doesn't mean your price is inherently too high.

It means your value has to keep pace with your price.

The more you charge, the more the experience has to match

This is something I keep saying:

The more valuable the service, the less the customer should have to guess.

And the more you charge, the higher the expectations become.

That does not mean every premium service needs champagne, marble floors, luxury language and a gift bag.

It means the customer needs to understand:

Why is this worth what I'm paying?

Maybe it's your expertise.

Maybe it's your specialization.

Maybe it's the result.

Maybe it's convenience.

Maybe it's consistency.

Maybe it's education.

Maybe it's access.

Maybe it's the relationship.

Maybe it's how easy the entire experience feels from discovery to booking to follow-up.

But something has to differentiate the experience.

Especially in a market where people already feel like they're constantly being asked to pay more and receive less.

Sometimes differentiation isn't sexy

I talk about this in my Defining Your Brand Beyond Luxury webinar — watch the replay here.

I think beauty businesses sometimes put too much pressure on differentiation to mean something huge.

Your competitive advantage doesn't always have to be:

Luxury.
Exclusive.
VIP.
Transformational.
Revolutionary.

Sometimes it's:

She starts on time.

I know what I'm going to pay.

She answers me.

Booking isn't stressful.

I know what's included.

She remembers what we did last time.

I can reschedule without feeling like I've committed a federal crime.

My own hairstylist is somebody I talk about a lot because so much of what makes that relationship work isn't some giant, sexy marketing promise.

It's trust.

Consistency.

Communication.

And knowing what to expect.

That stuff sounds boring until it's missing.

Then suddenly it's the entire reason somebody leaves.

Differentiation is understanding your outcome, your value, the problem you're solving and why somebody should choose your version of the experience.

The corporate model has tradeoffs too

I also don't want to romanticize the Ulta model.

One of the benefits of independence is earning upside and autonomy.

An independent stylist who builds a strong clientele, manages margins well and prices appropriately can create a very different financial opportunity than somebody working inside a larger corporate structure.

Third-party 2026 pay estimates illustrate that tradeoff. Indeed currently estimates average U.S. Ulta hair stylist pay at about $22.08 per hour, while Glassdoor reports an estimated $20–$28 per hour range for the role. Actual compensation can vary substantially by location, title, tips, commission and other factors.

But independence means you inherit the operating system too.

You're not only the stylist.

You're booking.

Customer service.

Marketing.

Pricing.

Follow-up.

Policies.

Technology.

Retention.

Inventory.

Service recovery.

And probably answering a DM at 10:43 p.m. asking whether somebody can bring their cousin.

That's the trade.

This is where growth ops comes in

Growth operations isn't only about getting more people through the door.

Sometimes the business already has demand.

The question becomes:

What happens after people want you?

Can they understand what you sell?

Can they figure out the price?

Can they book it?

Do they know what's included?

Do they know how to prepare?

Can they cancel or reschedule without confusion?

What happens when something goes wrong?

Does anybody follow up?

Does the client know what to book next?

Will the experience make them want to come back?

Because marketing and operations cannot live in completely separate universes.

Your Instagram can get somebody interested.

Your content can build trust.

Your work can be incredible.

Your positioning can be perfect.

But if the actual experience of becoming your customer feels chaotic, growth starts leaking out somewhere between:

"I want this."

and

"I'm coming back."

That is growth ops.

It's looking at the business as one connected system instead of treating marketing, sales, booking, operations and customer experience as five unrelated things.

We saw another version of this with the India Bridges conversation

I talked about something similar in my India Bridges piece around high-priced hair services.

Pricing wasn't the entire issue there either.

The customer is evaluating the whole experience.

Positioning sets the expectation.

Content creates recognition and trust.

The consultation clarifies the value.

Operations deliver the experience.

Aftercare strengthens the relationship.

Feedback improves it.

Advocacy helps create the next customer.

The price doesn't exist in isolation from everything surrounding it.

The experience has to match.

Then the internet built another layer

One of the most interesting things to come out of the Ulta conversation is that the community didn't just talk about the problem.

Someone built something.

Dr. Diamond Cunningham created an independent directory helping consumers find Black hairstylists working inside Ulta salons. Beauty Independent reported that the directory had grown to around 300 stylists as the conversation spread.

And I think that's fascinating from a growth perspective.

Ulta created the infrastructure.

The stylists already existed within that infrastructure.

Customers expressed a discovery problem:

Okay, but how do I find a Black stylist at my local Ulta?

And somebody built the missing connection.

That's growth ops in the wild.

Where is the friction?

What are people already trying to do?

What is getting in the way?

What would make it easier?

Sometimes the opportunity isn't another ad.

It's a directory.

A clearer booking path.

A better follow-up system.

An easier way to find the right person.

A better customer journey.

Shameless plug: this is also why I built Hair On Call

Because sometimes the friction happens before you ever need another appointment.

You don't necessarily need somebody to do your hair.

You need somebody qualified to tell you what the hell you're doing wrong.

Maybe your silk press won't last.

Maybe the back of your wash-and-go looks amazing and the front has decided it doesn't know you.

Maybe you're standing in the beauty supply store staring at 47 products wondering which one you actually need.

Maybe you tried something from TikTok and now you need somebody licensed to tell you whether you should keep going before you make the situation worse.

That's part of why I built Hair On Call.

Virtual access to licensed stylists who can help people troubleshoot their hair, understand techniques, choose products and create a plan without automatically turning every question into another salon appointment.

Because again:

Find the friction.

Then figure out whether you can remove it.

Sometimes that's a customer-experience fix.

Sometimes it's a new service.

Sometimes it's an entirely new revenue opportunity.

So what is the actual lesson from the Ulta discourse?

I don't think it's:

Become Ulta.

I don't think it's:

Independent stylists are charging too much.

And I definitely don't think it's:

Lower your prices until you can't pay yourself.

I don't think anybody has to be the villain here.

The better question is:

What is Ulta removing from the customer experience that your client may currently be carrying?

Uncertainty?

Too many booking hoops?

Confusing pricing?

Surprises?

Policies that only seem to protect one side?

Poor communication?

Difficulty finding the right professional?

No clear path when something goes wrong?

And on the other side:

What can an independent professional provide that a corporation cannot easily replicate?

Your expertise.

Your relationships.

Your personality.

Your specialization.

Your community.

Your judgment.

Your ability to know a specific client incredibly well.

Your ability to design an experience around a very specific type of person.

Those things have value.

But being independent doesn't mean the customer should have to accept unnecessary friction as part of the deal.

The strongest businesses can do both.

Protect the provider.

Respect the customer.

Charge appropriately.

Deliver value.

Build trust.

Communicate clearly.

Differentiate the experience.

Because sometimes the growth move isn't another rebrand.

It isn't another content strategy.

It isn't another viral video.

Sometimes it's simply making the business easier to do business with.

Make it easy for me to spend money with you — and make the experience feel worth what I paid.

That's not particularly sexy.

But neither is online booking.

Until your competitor has it and you don't.