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Men are increasingly willing to pay up to $800 to get a haircut

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Haircut

It's no secret that men are playing more attention to their appearance these days. Clothes, beards, shoes, and, of course, haircuts.

Now, guys are paying so much attention to their hair, that world leaders keep barbers on staff for $10,000 a month and hedge funders summering in the Hamptons have stylists fly out via helicopter from Manhattan, according to the New York Times.

And the $800 price doesn't even include a color treatment.

“I maintain that men’s prices should be the same as women’s,” Tim Rogers, a stylist at Sally Hershberger Salon, told the Times, adding that men can often be more demanding when they are required to travel and work around busy schedules.

“There is never a bad time for them,” Rogers said. “And everything has a price.”

But even if you're not having a stylist flown in, prices can still reach into the hundreds in Manhattan, according to stylists like April Barton, who charges around $300, and Martial Vivot, who asks $320.

For that kind of money, these hair cutters do more than just take a little off the top. They also dispense helpful advice to clients, like how to cover up their peeking gray roots and hide thinning hair.

Men pay these costs and trust their hair to these hairstylists because they're seen as the trusted experts. With a little research, however, you can guide a barber or hairstylist in the direction you'd like them to go, gaining power over your hair and how you'd like it to look while paying significantly less.

SEE ALSO: The absolute best men's haircut for summer, and how to get it

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NOW WATCH: 50 Cent will pay $23.4 million to creditors over the next 5 years — here's how he made and lost millions


I went to a decadent, $450-a-ticket party inspired by the Illuminati — and it was a totally surreal experience

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MICcZL2

Mystery shrouds the Illuminati, a legendary group of the rich, powerful, and extremely secretive. The original Bavarian Illuminati was a secret society that was rumored to control world affairs in the 1700s, including the French Revolution. More modern-day interpretations of the cult are thought to control much of pop culture.

I recently got a peek into this mysterious world during the immersive theater performance known as The Illuminati Ball, which took place at a majestic estate in the woods of Connecticut. Although I've been sworn to secrecy by a man wearing a mouse mask, who held a sword against the palm of my hands while I was blindfolded, I can tell you that it was a night I won't soon forget.

This multi-sensory theater show, which promises its guests a discovery of the "light of scientific truth" was written and directed by Cynthia Von Buhler, an artist of many mediums who is inspired by the absurd and surreal. 

At $450 a ticket, the Illuminati Ball is the most expensive immersive theater show out right now — however, the limousine transportation, multi-course meal, milk baths, swimming, trapeze dancers, and other secret experiences explain the higher price point for this piece. We got a special invite from Von Buhler herself, and here's as much information as I can divulge of my experience.

SEE ALSO: This casino once hosted glamorous royal parties — but now it sits completely abandoned

Von Buhler's Illuminati Ball was greatly inspired by one of the strangest dinner parties ever hosted by Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, of the elite Rothschild family, in 1972. Leaked photos from the evening reveal guests such as Salvador Dali and Audrey Hepburn dressed in elaborate, surrealist garb. Mrs. Rothschild herself greeted guests in a white gown and stag's head with diamond tears.



Conspiracy theorists have written about the symbolism at the event, which connected the Rothschild family to the Illuminati. Dismembered baby dolls were placed on the dining tables, supposedly meaning to represent human sacrifice, and the outside of the chateau was lit in a blazing red, representing the satanic rituals that were to be done inside. All of these themes were touched on during the Illuminati Ball that I attended.



Von Buhler's rendition was clearly inspired by the Rothschilds' party. We were picked up by a limousine on the Upper East Side and taken on an hour-long ride to Connecticut. The blinds were drawn, and champagne was served. Near the end of our trip, all phones were collected, and there was no way to know where exactly we were. When we arrived, we were greeted by our hosts, the Pig King and his wife. The initiation tests began immediately.



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6 things to know when refinancing a car loan

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CoupleDrivingCarTopDown

You love your car — but not enough to clean out your bank account each month to make your auto loan payment. Depending on your financial situation, refinancing your auto loan could reduce your monthly payments, offer you different payment options to better fit your life, and even give you a month off from making payments. And you thought you loved your car before.

Here are six things to know before deciding to refinance your car loan.

1. Better credit means better rates

Maybe you've paid off some student loans since you first bought your car. Or maybe you've been working hard to up your credit score in other ways. If your credit score is significantly better than it used to be, refinancing could mean lower interest rates.

2. You can play around with an auto refinance calculator first

You don't have to take any official action to find out whether refinancing your auto loan will save you money. Use an easy auto loan refinance calculator to estimate your savings. Then you can decide whether applying is right for you.

3. Don't sweat the transaction fees

If you've ever heard about all the fees associated with refinancing a home, you might assume auto loan refinancing would be the same. Good news: It's not. Auto refinance loans typically have nominal fees, which are far outweighed by the potential interest savings for many borrowers.

4. Sometimes discounts are available

Some lenders offer lower rates if you use other services of theirs. Wells Fargo, for example, offers some customers rate discounts with qualifying consumer checking accounts.

5. You can have a co-applicant

If you're working to build or establish your credit or have a lower credit score, you may qualify for better rates if you have a co-applicant. This might be a parent or friend who takes out the refinance loan with you. When considering a co-applicant, know that this person may maintain partial ownership of your vehicle because of it.

6. It's fast

Don't apply until you're ready to hit the gas. Auto loan refinancing can happen super fast. In fact, if you apply online, you may get a response in as soon as 15 minutes and have your funding available the same day. All you need to apply is information you're likely to have on hand about your personal identification, employment, vehicle and current auto loan.

Lower your monthly payment, your rate or both during the Great Rate Event. Eligible Wells Fargo customers can get a double discount interest rate.

This post is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

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What it's like to be black in Silicon Valley

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Apple executive Bozoma Saint John

Silicon Valley's tech industry could be a lonely place for black people.

Most tech companies' workforce heavily skew towards white male workers, with blacks making up less than 5% of the total.

We went through Quora and other interviews to find out what people say about being black in Silicon Valley's tech scene.

Here's what people say about it:

SEE ALSO: Here’s what people say about making $120,000 in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley's diversity problem has been well-documented over the past few years. Most tech workers are white or Asian men. There are not a whole lot of women or black people in the industry.



A lot of tech companies started reporting their "diversity" figures to show the racial breakdown of their workforce. In most cases, black people represent less than 2% of the total. For example, Google and Yahoo disclosed that their workforces were 1% black last year, while Twitter was close to 0%. Earlier this month, Facebook said only 2% of its US workforce was black.

Source: Reuters, NY Times, Huffington Post



In fact, only around 1% of the tech employees in the Bay Area are black, local historian and diversity advocate John William Templeton told the NY Times.

Source: NY Times



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

5 ways to stay sweat-free this summer

Here are the artists you need to check out from New York's newest music festival

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panorama

This weekend is the inaugural Panorama music festival on Randall's Island in New York City.

Throughout the three-day festival, over 50 musicians will perform, with headliners like Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, and Kendrick Lamar leading the weekend. 

While those names might be recognizable to any casual music fan, we decided to pick out some lesser-known acts performing that are worth checking out.

Broken Social Scene

It's been a few years since we last heard from Broken Social Scene, but word on the street is that the band has lost none of its "magical energy" in the interim.

For those that don't know them, the band is made up of a rotating cast of anywhere from six to 19 members from indie bands such as Stars, Feist, Metric, and KC Accidental.  

The veteran musicians rotate instruments and take turns singing on different songs, making them an exciting band to watch even if you aren't familiar with the material.

Friday July 22 - The Pavilion - 5:30 p.m. - 6:20 p.m.

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Foals

UK rockers Foals are currently making the rounds at just about every major festival this summer, and with good reason: the band is a ton of fun to listen to.

Their "arena-funk," as Pitchfork called it, demands that you both dance and rock out. And isn't that exactly the type of crowd-pleaser you want to listen to at a summer festival? 

Saturday July 23 - Panorama Stage - 4:30 p.m. - 5:20 p.m.

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Kurt Vile and the Violators

The dog days of summer are almost upon us, and there's no artist more perfectly matched to that vibe than Kurt Vile. His brand of hazy, guitar-driven rock sounds like a faded daydream from the 1970s. 

Did I mention the guy can shred?

Sunday July 24 - Panorama Stage - 4:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. 

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This Cleveland ice-cream store captures the essence of Donald Trump in an all-new flavor

Here's why it will be so unbearably hot this weekend

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HeatIndexForecastFor18June2016_NOAA 768x614A heat wave is coming.

Most of the US will be gripped by dangerously high temperatures this weekend. According to the National Weather Service, some places will see temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit above average for this time of year.

The temperatures are expected to be so much higher than normal because of a meteorological event called a heat dome. That is when a dome of high pressure in the upper atmosphere traps warm air beneath it. Under the dome, the air sinks toward the ground, becomes more compressed, and heats up even more — often to dangerous levels, as are expected this weekend.

The heat dome, which is expected to be especially large this time, will envelop the Midwest first and then move eastward over the weekend. This is why eastern Missouri and southern Illinois are expected to see a high of 100 degrees on Friday. New York is expected to see a high of 97 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday, according to Weather.com.

This heat dome formed largely because of the jet stream, LiveScience reports. This time of year, the jet stream is farther north, passing roughly over the border between the US and Canada. It effectively prevents cooler air from pushing southward into the country.

But that's not all. Not only is the heat expected to be unbearable in parts of the country, but the humidity will make it feel worse — in other words, the heat index, which factors in humidity and raw temperature, will increase. For example, the heat index in eastern Missouri is forecast to be 105 to 112 this weekend.

The heat dome is a high-pressure mass. Because air flows clockwise around the center of high-pressure systems in the northern hemisphere, the heat dome will suck up humid air behind it from the Gulf of Mexico as it moves east.

In other parts of the country, such as the Midwest, the heat dome will be compounded by a weather phenomenon known as corn sweat, NBC news reports. That happens when water is released from the leaves of crops such as corn into the atmosphere, making it extra muggy.

While eastern cities, like New York, will most likely be spared the effects of corn sweat, they are still likely to be hotter than the surrounding areas because of the "urban heat island effect." Heat in urban areas is absorbed by concrete and asphalt and trapped between tall buildings. The heat is also enhanced by vehicles, factories, air conditioners, and pollution. As a result, cities are generally 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than their surroundings, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

A lot of things are coming together to make it really hot this weekend, so be sure to take precautions to be safe and follow the advice from the National Weather Service: Stay indoors, limit strenuous activities outside, drink lots of water, don't leave anyone alone in a car, and find a local cooling center if you don't have access to air conditioning.

SEE ALSO: What extreme heat does to your body and brain

DON'T MISS: Don't count on trees to stop the world from getting hotter — here's why

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Chances are, summer will be hotter than you expect


The 'best' pizza in NYC costs $30 for a regular pie — and it's SO worth it

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Over 50 years ago, in 1965, Italian immigrant Domenico DeMarco opened Di Fara Pizza in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

To this day, it's considered by critics and locals alike to be "the best of the best" (as former chef Anthony Bourdain reportedly put it back in 2007).

Just look at this:

Di Fara Pizza

There's a lot of pizza in New York City. It's a cliché maybe, but Di Fara Pizza is considered by many to be New York City's best pizza. It's notoriously expensive ($30 for a regular cheese pizza), and has a notoriously long wait (over an hour, easy). It's also dangerously delicious. And I should know — I ventured deep into Brooklyn on Sunday evening to try Di Fara's legendary pizza for myself. This is what it was like!

SEE ALSO: I've lived in New York City for 22 years, and here are my favorite places to eat for less than $20

The first thing you need to do is get to a part of Brooklyn that isn't well-serviced by New York's world famous subway system. My wife and I took the B68 bus!



One of the best parts of going to Di Fara's is visiting the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

Midwood is a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, Eastern European in origin, though plenty of other religious groups and ethnicities live in the area. Famous names, from Adam "MCA" Yauch (of the Beastie Boys) to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hail from the Midwood section of Brooklyn. The neighborhood has largely resisted the forces of gentrification sweeping Brooklyn's western coast (the side facing Manhattan).



But you're here for the pizza. I get it. Di Fara Pizza is located at the corner of Avenue J and East 15th Street. I went at night, but this is what it looks like during the day from the outside:



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

How sunscreen actually works

The coolest people under 40 in Silicon Valley

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travis kalanick

Silicon Valley revolves around the minds of tech pioneers that are striving to burst through the industry ceiling each year.

These innovators have the power and ambition to change the way we think and live. 

Business Insider recently released its annual Silicon Valley 100 list, highlighting the people in tech who have made a big impression this past year — and it's teeming with impressive and accomplished CEOs and founders under 40 years old. 

From virtual reality to self-driving cars, these ventures are shaking up the tech world with these leaders at the helm. 

Read on to check out some of the youngest people who've left an imprint on Silicon Valley in the past year.

Additional reporting by Julia Naftulin, Tanza Loudenback, and Alexa Pipia.

Edited by Alex Morrell and Matt Rosoff.

 

SEE ALSO: THE SILICON VALLEY 100: The most amazing and inspiring people in tech right now

DON'T MISS: The 35 coolest CEOs in Silicon Valley right now

Jess Lee, 34

Cofounder and CEO, Polyvore

Yahoo bought the social shopping site Polyvore last July reportedly for a price of about $200 million, saying the company's expertise in community-driven experiences and retailer-supported commerce paired with Yahoo's premium content showed "amazing potential." Lee said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had a part in shaping her career when she interviewed Lee for Google's elite associate product manager program back in the early 2000s. Since it joined the Yahoo family, Polyvore expanded in February to include a new menswear category, an area that Pinterest is also aggressively going after. 



Joe Lonsdale, 33

Founding partner, 8VC

Once dubbed one of the "hottest VCs since Andreessen Horowitz," Formation 8 broke up in November, with its founding partners, including Lonsdale, the Palantir cofounder, all leaving to start their own firms. The turnaround for Lonsdale was fast. Four months later, he had already raised $300 million for his new firm, 8VC. He now sits on the board of several hot startups including Oscar, Hyperloop One, and Wish.



Chris Wanstrath, 31

CEO, Github

Described as the "Facebook for code," Github's rapidly growing software development network is made up of over 15 million users. With more than 38 million projects available on the site, Github has become one of the largest communities of software developers on the web. Last summer, Github raised $250 million in series B funding, bringing total funding to $350 million and raising its valuation to $2 billion.

As for the future? Wanstrath told Business Insider in October that he wanted to make it easier for anyone to become a developer, and to do that he wants to focus on improving Github's service.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Greg Norman reveals his two favorite golf courses in the world

A couple quit their high-paying corporate jobs to go on an epic 38,000-mile, 16-month road trip

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sprintervandiaries - salt flats

Many people fantasize about quitting the rat race and exploring the world, but few actually have the guts to do it.

Nikki Levi and Jakob Celnik, graduates of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, quit their well-paying corporate jobs, bought a van, and drove 38,000 miles across the Americas.

Their journey lasted 16 months and took them across Canada and down the West Coast of California, through Central and South America, and down to Ushuaia, Argentina, an area also known as the "end of the earth."

Levi worked at Citigroup in New York as a high-yield credit-research analyst for four years before moving to Apple. Celnik worked at the Blackstone Group, also in New York, for almost three years before moving over to Soros Fund Management.

"While leaving our jobs, we were terrified," Levi told Business Insider.

"How can you leave finance? I mean the money ... that's all there is to live for right?" she joked.

"But in hindsight, we shouldn't have been ... We cannot buy time, so we try to enjoy the time we do have doing the things we love, with the people and animals we love," she said.

Levi, Celnik, and their dog, Leika, set off on the adventure of a lifetime in May 2014. Here's what their journey was like:

They bought a used 2008 Dodge Sprinter 2500 high-roof van, with a 144-inch wheelbase, and with about 90,000 miles on the clock.

It was completely empty when they bought it. With little carpentry, mechanics, or construction experience, it was a process of trial and error to figure out what exactly to build and how to build it. They figured out a budget and tried to learn as much as they could by reading guides like the Sprinter forum and the Sprinter conversion sourcebook.



The bed frame was one of the first things they built.

First, they needed to figure out the layout of the floor plan for their van build. They chose a Sprinter with a 144-inch wheelbase and high roof because its length allowed for parking in regular parking spots, while its roof was high enough for both to stand up — even Celnik at 6 feet 2 inches.



Then they worked on the storage units.

Since the space inside the van was so small, everything had to be precisely measured.

They managed to fit storage cabinets close to the bed for clothes, books, and toiletries and deeper cabinets at the end of the bed.

There are no straight lines in the van, except for the bed platform itself, and all four walls are shaped differently. They had to get creative.



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What Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and 24 other business visionaries were doing in their 20s

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Reed Hastings

Where some might see failure, others might see opportunity for success — and when you're in your twenties, it can be hard to distinguish which is which. 

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff made his first $1 million at 25. At the same age, Spanx founder Sara Blakely was a door-to-door office supply salesman. 

Both entrepreneurs are now billionaires running game-changing companies that are featured on our first ever edition of the Business Insider 100: The Creators —  a nod to some of the most successful and visionary business leaders who are changing the world for the better. 

To show that no two success stories are alike, we put together 25 stories of what people from our Creators ranking were doing in their twenties. 

SEE ALSO: BI 100: The Creators

DON'T MISS: Interview with TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie

Salman Khan was in business school

By the time Khan graduated the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998, he had three degrees under his belt — two bachelors in mathematics and computer science and a masters in engineering. When he was 25, he was pursuing an MBA at Harvard Business School.

Khan spent the following years as a hedge fund analyst, and it wasn't until he started tutoring his cousin in 2004 that the idea for Khan Academy: online videos aimed to help provide low-income students with free tutoring and test preparation.



Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook was cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users.

Zuckerberg had been hard at work on Facebook for five years by the time he hit age 25. In that year — 2009 — the company turned cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users. He was excited at the time, but said it was just the start, writing on Facebook that "the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone." The next year, he was named "Person of the Year" by Time magazine. 



John Lasseter was a newly hired animator at Disney

Right before Pixar was created, Lasseter was a graduate fresh out of the California Institute of Arts. In 1979, when he was 22, he immediately landed a job as an animator for Walt Disney Feature Animation. After a couple of years, he was fired from the company because he, "felt so strongly about computer animation and wouldn't take no for an answer."

Luckily in 1983, he was hired by George Lucas for the Lucasfilm Computer Division. Three years later, the group eventually turned into Pixar when it was purchased by Steve Jobs.



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This is why New York City smells so nasty in the summer

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Smog over NYC

For travelers with the gleam of the Big Apple in their eye, nothing seems better than New York City in the summertime.

Restaurants have outdoor seating, there are festivals all over town, and you don't have to worry about bringing your jacket to Top of the Rock.

But long-time city dwellers know the horror behind the mystique: those awful smells that dominate every daily commute to and from the office.

Here's why it's hard to escape the stench of the city in the heat of summer.

New York City has the highest population density in the US, and with 8,550,405 people roaming the nation’s melting pot, it’s bound to get smelly.

A census conducted in July 2015 showed that the city had a population density of over 27,000 people per square mile. To put that into perspective, the US, on average, holds only 80 people per square mile. That much combined body odor alone could be enough to scare anyone away.

With such an insanely huge number of people living in just one city, it should come as no surprise that there is also an insanely huge amount of garbage produced.

Although residents of the city produce 12,000 tons of waste every day, New York City doesn’t have any of its own landfills or incinerators. Garbage piles up in dumpsters until it can all be taken across the Hudson River to be incinerated in New Jersey, or, if possible, recycled locally and overseas.

But even after most of this waste has been incinerated across the river, strong winds can still carry the stench back over to the city on a hot day.

The sheer amount of garbage isn’t the only problem. There also has to be a way to get all of it out of the city. Diesel trucks carry garbage out of Manhattan 7.8 million times each year. Let this sink in: That’s the same as driving around the earth 312 times, and that's just for one city.

Halal food truckAll this driving only adds to pollution and the greenhouse effect, causing the city to become warmer and smellier as time continues.

You may also be wondering why those subway vents on every block smell so much more putrid on a steamy summer day. Or how it is possible to smell a food cart from all the way down the street.

It turns out the combination of heat and humidity allow bacteria to grow faster and smells to travel further. Increasing temps mean molecules move faster, resulting in enzymes speeding up metabolism and cells quickly increasing in size. Heat is bacteria’s best friend.

So when you get stuck with one those incredibly humid days, smells become only more potent. The water in the air causes these odors to dissolve, trapping them longer than if it were a dry day outside.

To many, New York is the city of dreams, but you have to be willing to accept it for the good, the bad, and the smelly.

SEE ALSO: Here's the mugshot of the ex-Stanford swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman that took months to be released

DON'T MISS: 28 incredible photos of monster waves off Sydney that put a pro surfer in the hospital

Join the conversation about this story »

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