I am coming clean about getting dirty. A few weeks ago I was up way too late. Naturally, this led me into some weird YouTube wormhole. I started off by binge watching hauls and makeup tutorials but then found this large amount of videos titled "Ulta Dumpster Diving". My 3 a.m. delirium made me watch at least 20 of these videos.

Most of the videos started out with a pretty girl blushing and saying not to judge her for doing something so crazy. This same girl would recall her trip, usually in the dead of night, to an Ulta dumpster. She would then hold up a bag or box filled with beauty products and makeup palettes galore. Being the beauty lover that I am, I was immediately intrigued by this. Some random girls had found the secret to getting hundreds of dollars of makeup items for free. I was addicted. For the next few days I watched countless videos and became an expert on the art of Ulta Dumpster Diving. I learned the best times to go, what to wear, and how to sanitize my "finds".

I happen to work at a shoe store conveniently right by an Ulta, so the next time I worked a night shift I decided to try my hand at this newfound "hobby". I quickly shared with my other beauty-loving coworkers what I had learned and convinced them to come diving with me after we closed. Once they got past the initial "ew gross" thoughts, their eyes would light up just thinking about what they might find.

We headed to the back of the Ulta and got out our phone flashlights to aide us. The dumpsters were way taller than we thought so we had to do lots of climbing and wiggling to get in. We dug through tons of bags, empty boxes, and random display pieces. Nothing. We would uncover what seemed to be a great find just to realize it was the pretty box that once held our dream product. We mostly just found packaging to products and the cardboard boxes they arrived to the store in. I was convinced that this was just a bad night. I later went back three times (even dragging my boyfriend along at one point) just to make sure I wasn't missing out. Each time I was met with disappointment. The products were either empty or destroyed beyond use.

Long story short, it was nothing like the videos.

In the hundreds of videos I had seen girls would find so many glorious items. All my coworkers and I found was useless trash and disappointment. It wasn't all for nothing though. I had a great time laughing and sneaking in the dark. My coworkers and I still laugh about how silly we are and how crazy this idea was.