LOS ANGELES - Vidal Sassoon used his hairstyling shears to free women from beehives and hot rollers and to 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 Mr. Sassoon’s creative cuts, which required little styling and fell into place perfectly every time, fit right in with the fledgling women’s liberation movement.

Mr. Sassoon died Wednesday at his home on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, police spokesman Kevin Maiberger said. He was 84.

His family was with him. Officers determined that Mr. Sassoon died of natural causes.

“My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous,’’ Mr. Sassoon said in 1993 in the Los Angeles Times. “Women were going back to work; they were assuming their own power. They didn’t have time to sit under the dryer anymore.’’

His wash-and-wear styles included the bob, the Five-Point cut, and the “Greek Goddess,’’ a short, tousled perm, inspired by the “Afro-marvelous-looking women’’ he said he saw in New York’s Harlem.

Mr. Sassoon opened his first salon in his native London in 1954, but said he did not 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.

His shaped cuts were an integral part of the look of Mary Quant, the superstar British fashion designer who popularized the miniskirt.

He also often worked in the 1960s with American designer Rudi Gernreich, who became a household name in 1964 with his much-publicized (but seldom-worn) topless bathing suit.