As an international beauty expert and celebrity stylist, Nick Stenson advises a wide range of celebrity clients, film directors, theatre touring companies, network news programs and the elite of New York’s Fashion Week. He routinely flexes his fashion muscle to establish an ever-changing vogue in beauty trend innovation for both hair and skin.
As the Chief Artistic Director for ULTA Beauty, Nick has the privilege of setting the course for salon and services direction through trend development, as well as for training and advising stylists at over 950 salons and stores across the country. Nick oversees the seasonal, on-trend cut, color and styling offerings available at Ulta Beauty. This vision begins when Nick, together with his hand-selected, elite Ulta Beauty Pro Team, a team of five hairstylists representing some of the most elite brands in the beauty industry, pioneer the trends for Ulta Beauty. Nick and his in-house Ulta Beauty Design Team then translate the trends into seasonal, cut, color and styling offerings before ensuring that over 100 Ulta Beauty Artistic Educators are equipped with the necessary technical training to take those trends to the hands of thousands of Ulta stylists in stores across the country.
Nick plays a key role in the development of the Salon & Services strategy that continues to take Ulta Beauty to the next level in hair, beauty and skincare offerings. Nick works to elevate branding and to explore synergies between Ulta’s skincare, haircare and cosmetic groups to help deliver all things beauty, all in one place. Nick’s experience as a former multi-unit salon owner and as the former senior creative director for a chain of 859 salons with 10,000 stylists nationwide at a major national retailer, contributes to the beauty industry arsenal Nick brings to bear at Ulta Beauty.
As Artistic Director and celebrity stylist for Matrix, a L’OREAL brand, Nick serves as a platform artist and spokesperson to some of the world’s best stylists at national venues such as Matrix Imagination, Destination Premiere, America’s Beauty Show and other industry trade shows. His video education series has taught techniques to thousands of stylists online. His multiple nominations for the influential North American Hair Styling Awards (NAHA) have been widely acclaimed and published.
As a beauty expert and color specialist, Nick has hand-developed some of the industry’s most popular trends using prestigious hair color portfolios for Matrix Professional Haircare and Color. Nick’s color trend advice can be found in his own column in each issue of The Colorist magazine. As the former Editor-in-Chief of a hair trend magazine, Nick is well-versed in setting seasonal trends and motivating stylists nationwide to explore the newest varieties of cut, color and style technique.
Nick’s editorial work has appeared on the covers of Modern Salon, American Salon, Beauty Launchpad and Matrix Magazine and in issues of Woman’s Day, Vogue, Bride, Redbook, InStyle, Teen Vogue, US Weekly, OK, and People magazines. Nick has been featured in stories on NBC and CBS News, and can be found regularly on media outlets including Good Morning America, The Today Show and The Wendy Williams Show. Nick has hosted an ongoing television series that featured the latest hair and color trends and spotlighted artists from around the globe.
Nick Stenson is passionate to leave his mark as a respected professional voice and face of the industry, one known for challenging the world to recognize the beautiful.
