Oh Boy, Pool Party Season is Starting...

Ah, pool party season in Vegas. Four months of drunken, half naked people spending too much money to dance next to a pool before swapping STDs.

The day-club concept was originated at The Hard Rock with their Rehab pool party, which became so popular that they based a reality show on the event. Seeing the opportunity to separate idiots from their money, many other resorts on and near The Strip launched their own pool party events.

I don't know how to state this more strongly: avoid the Vegas pool party scene like the plague (especially since you just might get the plague if you go into a pool with some of the people in those crowds).

These events are the definition of stupid Vegas excess. The crowds are made up of douchey people with toned bodies who will make you feel insecure about the fact that you've been avoiding a trip to the gym for more than a month. Everything is overpriced (not uncommon for anything in Vegas) and just like in a nightclub, it's nearly impossible to find a seat if you haven't paid through the teeth for bottle service. Some of the bottle service options include private cabanas where you can get your own flatscreen TVs... making anybody who pays for one clearly the king of the d-bags.

Why pay an expensive cover charge to enter one of these hellish petri dishes of depravity when you can just hang out poolside at your hotel for free without having to deal with the same auto-tuned dance tracks that every DJ in town insists on playing. The Mandalay Bay pool area has a fake beach, a lazy river and a wave pool... which is way more awesome than a nightclub atmosphere moved outside into the glaring light of the sun. I mean, I'll rock a nightclub once in awhile when I can hide in the darkness as I drink enough to dance... who needs to have their shame revealed by the daylight?

And that's the main reason you don't want to go to a Vegas pool party... because you really don't want to party with people who have no sense of shame. It's just unnatural.

Escape From Douchery, Part 4: The Beauty Bar

Beauty Bar franchises have become hipster nightlife institutions across the nation, with outposts in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Hollywood, Austin, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Dallas and, of course, Las Vegas.

The Sin City Beauty Bar location opened its doors in 2004 on Fremont Street, instantly becoming one of the hippest watering holes in Vegas.


Retrofitted with equipment from the the Salon of Beauty, a working beauty salon that opened in the late fifties in Trenton, New Jersey, ladies love The Beauty Bar because they can actually get real manicures along with their cocktails. Every Friday night except for the first Friday of every month, a manicurist is on duty at the bar... which means if you're trolling Vegas bars in order to meet women, then The Beauty Bar on a Friday night is your best bet (you lonely perv, you).

Sip on some stiff drinks while you lounge in the same salon chairs that New Jersey housewives sat in while hair-stylists worked on their beehive hairdos for a totally unique and funky experience that's unlike any bar you've ever been to.

The jukebox is stocked with a great variety of good tunes, and a DJ is usually spinning records at the venue. Beauty Bar Vegas also features a massive back patio that serves as the perfect venue for some of the hottest live acts in town. They always feature a killer after-party on First Fridays, and the crowd is generally one of the coolest mixes of people in town.

While Vegas is known to sometimes feature inferior versions of venues that originated in other cities, I can tell you that the Beauty Bar in Las Vegas features a much better scene than the one in Hollywood. While the Los Angeles based version of the bar generally hosts a parade of hot messes who couldn't get into cooler clubs around the corner, the people at Beauty Bar Vegas had to make a choice to head to Fremont Street instead of The Strip, meaning that they're there because they want to be there... which obviously makes for a better night out. It's harsh, but I've just seen too many girls with runny mascara at the Hollywood venue who spent the last hour crying because they couldn't get into the Kress, making it the most ironically named bar in all of the greater Los Angeles metro area. The Vegas outpost thankfully has none of those issues, simply hosting a great group of adventurous people looking for a good time in old Vegas.