Eden Sassoon Shares More Than Hair With Her Philanthropic Father, Vidal Sassoon

As the daughter of Vidal Sassoon, Eden Sassoon grew up surrounded by hair — and was totally disinterested in it as a result.

"In high school, I won 'Best Hair.' I didn't have the best hair!" The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills friend admitted to The Daily Dish. "I never cared about my hair because it was such a big, big, big issue, but not an issue in a negative way. My hair was always long, it was always hippyish. It wasn't about the hair for me because I always was around hair. Every single day of my life it was about hair."

She gave her hair little attention in high school. "I never brushed it, I woke up, and I just ran out of the house. It was just long and big, it was a mess! Dad was always like, 'Do something with your hair!' and I was like, 'No! Don’t touch my hair!'"

Eden eventually came around to the beauty business as an adult and currently owns the West Hollywood salon EDEN by Eden Sassoon, but that's not the only family legacy she has been intent on furthering since her father's 2012 passing. Vidal, who grew up in an orphanage, was an internationally respected philanthropist who inspired her to start Beauty Gives Back, a nonprofit that hosts events that raise general awareness of the global water crisis and specifically assists Thirst Project's efforts to build clean water wells in Swaziland.

"We take it all for granted," she said. "We, at any moment in our day, can have water. We wake up with water and we take clean baths and we wash. . . So here you are and you see people who are literally, pumping their well and water is coming out. They’ve had to walk miles and miles and miles for water, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you do? You brush your teeth, you turn your faucet on, and you drink, you’re dehydrated, you’re drinking water! You can’t imagine living like that at all."

Eden likes to remember her father's infinite kindnesses whenever she's going through tough times.

"He was in an orphanage and when we had Hurricane Katrina, he got the hairdressing industry around him and they built up to 30 homes. He wasn’t raised in a home, he was raised in an orphanage. He had a roof over his head but it wasn’t a home. So that was a big thing for him.

"His whole life was pretty much giving back," she remembers. "He always said to me, 'I will financially support you in any way if it has anything to do with health and/or education,' so I always knew I could go to him for that. And then when I would get down on myself or for any situation, he would literally look at me like, 'Are you out of your mind? You have everything you could possibly want' and then get stern. This is one memory that I talk about and that I’ll never forget: He would tell me, 'Darling, go do something for someone else.' Basically, shut up, get out of your own head and do something bigger and greater for someone else. And he’s absolutely right because there is not one thing, unless I’m dying or I, God forbid, have cancer or something really intense is going on, I am okay. And I am very much capable of doing everything and anything for somebody or something else outside of my comfort zone. I think more people could actually live by his words. Go do something for someone else. Because then your problems, you start to look at them like, 'That's not a problem, I’m ridiculous. I’m creating my own drama.'"