hot take: makeup stores
sephora sucks because their workers are stuck up and expect all their customers to come in with a full face and if you ask for help finding your shade/knowing what would look good with your skin tone, they’re extremely rude and look down on you for not knowing everything there is to know about makeup
ulta is great because you can go in and they have the cheaper brands on one side of the store and the more expensive, high end brands on the other side, and their workers seem to genuinely want to help people with makeup, regardless of how experienced in the art the customer is
a worker at ulta is actually a big reason i was not discouraged from practicing makeup (even if i looked like a clown more often than not) because she told me i was The Icon when i was 13 and wearing drugstore makeup and was experiencing my first time at a dedicated beauty store, only to go to sephora a few weeks later and get weird looks from all of the workers there because, lets be honest, i was hideous, but i was also a kid just having fun with makeup. i didnt wear makeup outside of eyeliner and mascara for 2 years before tentatively stepping foot into an ulta and falling in love with makeup all over again.
