LOS ANGELES (AP) Vidal Sassoon used his hairstyling shears to free women from beehives and hot rollers and give them wash-and-wear cuts that made him an international name in hair care.

When he came on the scene in the 1950s, hair was high and heavy typically curled, teased, piled and shellacked into place. Then came the 1960s, and Sassoons creative cuts, which required little styling and fell into place perfectly every time, fit right in with the fledgling womens liberation movement.

His timing was perfect: As womens hair was liberated, so were their lives, Allure magazine Editor-in-Chief Linda Wells told The Associated Press in a written statement. Sassoon was one of the original feminists.

Sassoon was at his home in Los Angeles with his family when he died Wednesday at age 84, police spokesman Kevin Maiberger said. Maiberger said police were summoned to the home but found that Sassoon had died of natural causes, and authorities wouldnt investigate further.

His exact cause of death was unclear, but publicist Mark Sejvar said Sassoon had leukemia for several years.

Vidal Sassoon was the most famous hairstylist in the history of the world, said John Paul DeJoria, a close friend of Sassoon and CEO of John Paul Mitchell Systems, a company he co-founded with the late Paul Mitchell, a Sassoon protege. Good hairstylists never die. Vidal Sassoon and Paul Mitchell will always live on.

DeJoria said Sassoon had been scheduled to sit at his table for a fundraiser Monday night but called to cancel, saying his body was feeling just a little bit too tired and he would be there in spirit.

Sassoon opened his first salon in his native London in 1954 but said he didnt perfect his cut-is-everything approach until the mid-60s. Once the wash-and-wear concept hit, though, it hit big, and many women retired their curlers for good.

Sassoon opened more salons in England and expanded to the United States before also developing a line of shampoos and styling products bearing his name. His advertising slogan was If you dont look good, we dont look good.

The hairdresser also established Vidal Sassoon Academies to teach aspiring stylists how to envision haircuts based on a clients bone structure. There are now academies in England, Germany, China, the U.S. and Canada.

Whether long or short, hair should be carved to a womans bone structure, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1967. Actually short hair is a state of mind … not a state of age.

Sassoons hair-care mantra: To sculpt a head of hair with scissors is an art form. Its in pursuit of art.

He sold his business interests in the early 1980s to devote himself to philanthropy. The Boys Clubs of America and the Performing Arts Council of the Music Center of Los Angeles were among the causes he supported through his Vidal Sassoon Foundation.

He later became active in post-Hurricane Katrina charities.

He had moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s in search of a chemist to formulate his hair-care products and decided to make the city his home.

Growing up very poor in London, Sassoon said that when he was 14, his mother declared he was to become a hairdresser. After traveling to Palestine and serving in the Israeli war, he returned home to fulfill her dream.

I thought Id be a soccer player but my mother said I should be a hairdresser, and, as often happens, the mother got her way, he told the AP in 2007.