The East 86th Street corridor is quickly becoming a beacon of light for beauty obsessives. Sephora is on Lexington Avenue, MAC is on Second Avenue and this week Ulta Beauty opened it’s first Manhattan store on Third Avenue.
The 12,000-sq-ft store is much more than a lip-stick and nail-polish emporium. The beauty giant houses more than 20,000 products from approximately 500 well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points. The 86th Street store also offers an array of beauty services including, hair cuts, color, blowouts, makeup and nails. An assortment of facials are offered by Dermalogical and brow and lashes services are offered by BrowBar.
What makes this beauty emporium different than most any other beauty retailer in New York is the vast variety of merchandise. Shoppers will find a verity of drugstore brands, like Revlon and Maybelline, in addition to elevated products from Perricone, Nars and MAC.
We are most excited about being able to test products from brands like Lipstick Queen, Anastasia Beverly Hills, which aren’t readily available at our usual haunts. Ulta is also known for it’s legendary exclusives with Tarte, Urban Decay and various other companies.
As mentioned, Ulta’s menu of beauty services is extensive. Haircuts start at $46 for a junior stylist and range to nearly $100 for a master coiffeur. Beware, if you think you are headed for an inexpensive cut, there are lots of extra charges that make an Ulta cut almost as expensive as a Madison Avenue salon.
On our first go-round we were cornered into an elevated stylist, charged for long hair and various other fees that were later removed. The bottom line is that the cut was very nice but customers should be sure to ask about the costs before booking a service.
The best thing about the Ulta store is that it opens at 7am, which means you can drop the kids off at school and have pronto service before the day officially begins. Beautiful before 8am is the start of a beautiful day.
Ulta Beauty
188 East 86th Street
Mon-Fri 7am-9pm
Sat 8am-9pm, Sun 9am-8pm