I have to disagree with your first paragraph. You make the point of stressing that they are there to sell product and make a living as if this is a bad thing. There is no other reason for a store to exist. However, I have used several different Ulta stores in 3 different states. I have gotten excellent service and good, useful advice in every store and you’d have to be blind to not notice I am a transgender woman. If I had to make a guess, I would have to say at least 20% of the employees in every store I’ve been in was somewhere on the non-cis spectrum. If I had to guess, I would say that the manager of the salon at my local Ulta who did a facial for me was a MtF trans woman, as was the last MAC rep I took a course with.
I do agree there are also a lot of very good tutorials on Youtube and I have downloaded several of them.
