Paris Hilton: Big In Beauty?

June 07, 2008

She's taking over the world, one hair extension at a time. Hotel heiress Paris Hilton tells Louise Horne about her plans to build a beauty empire

More than 150,000 people visit the Cosmoprof cosmetics exhibition in Bologna each year, but this time there was only one name on everyone’s lips: Paris Hilton.

The 27-year-old socialite rolled into the Italian town last month to promote her new haircare and accessories range and proved to be a real showstopper.

Pitched in a private tent, complete with catwalk and blaring sound system (her own album, naturally), the actress/singer/whatever showcased the first products in her range to crowds of Italian fans.

The line-up, created in partnership with US manufacturer HairTech International, consists of permanent and temporary hair extensions, cleansing and styling products, heated appliances and accessories.

So, what’s Paris’ favourite? “I love everything. I’ve been wearing the DreamCatchers Hair Extensions for a while to make my hair longer,” she said. “But The Bandit is my favourite of the new products. It’s so easy. You can just wake up in the morning and decide what you want your hair to look like. It’s simple, fast and looks great. It’s definitely the fun new way to wear hair.”

The Bandit consists of an interchangeable hairband with a detachable heat resistant hairpiece that sits over the natural hair and can be curled, blow dried or straightened as desired. The hairpiece comes in a variety of colours and three lengths: six inches, 16 inches and 22 inches.

The wearer simply selects the colour that most closely matches her own and away she goes. Paris, who is famous for changing her hairstyle on an almost weekly basis, wears the six inch Bandit with a classic black hairband for our interview.

“I’ve worn wigs in the past for events but they’re much harder to wear,” she says. “When you wear the Bandit you can’t even feel it’s on.”

While she’s not exactly celebrated in the press for her business acumen, there’s no doubt that Paris has a keen eye for a trend. She was one of the first celebrities to bring out her own fragrance, has her own clothing range and even lends her face to a line of watches.

It should come as no surprise then, that The Bandit was her own idea. “I always wear a hairband, it’s kind of my signature look, and I just thought, why can’t they attach hair extensions to an Alice band?” she says. “I came up with a prototype and we made it with lots of different coloured bands. My family loved it. There’s also a wide range of hair colours to suit everyone and I’ll be bringing new bands out all the time.”

The Paris Hilton Collection haircare range meanwhile consists of three cleansers and conditioners in addition to seven treatment and styling products. And the collection’s Salon in a Bag provides everything a woman might need to style her hair on the go – a hot pink mini hairdryer, straighteners, small and large curling tongs, banana clips and a round brush all packed into a heat resistant travel bag, complete with worldwide travel adaptor.

With all these tools, products and accessories, you could be forgiven for thinking that Paris has the world’s highest maintenance beauty regime, but she reveals her ‘desert island’ product is the humble lipgloss.

“I can’t live without lipgloss and I absolutely love make-up. Actually I’m working on my own make-up line at the moment. It’ll be out by the end of the year,” she says, batting an impressive set of false eyelashes.

So will it also include those too? “Yes, absolutely, I just learnt how to put them on myself – it’s really hard!”

While Paris’ test ground for her beauty empire is the US, HairTech confirms it will launch her hair collection into the UK high street by the end of the year. Judging the reaction of the Italian crowds and her permanent place in the UK gossip columns, any product bearing her name is bound to cause a stir.

“The UK is a huge market for me – London is my favourite city in the world,” she says. “My fragrances have done really well there and I’ll be launching another fragrance, Can Can, in Selfridges in May. I’m also developing my fifth fragrance right now.”

So, while it might seem that all Paris does is party, it appears she is quietly building an international beauty empire to rival that of her family’s hotel chain – and all without the glossy advertising of rival brands. She is her own walking, talking brand ambassador and, in the critical eyes of the public, there’s no better endorsement than that.

“I only wear my own stuff so I don’t have to wear anyone else,” she says. “It’s so great, every day I can be head-to-toe in the Paris brand.”

From-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2008/06/07/hparis107.xml