Lauren Conrad from The Hills has signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins to write young adult novels loosely based on her own experiences.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict they’ll be huge bestsellers.  Sigh.  I’m currently sick as a dog (have a few different, un-fun things personal things going on) so have been spending a lot of time in bed watching half-hour shows, as that’s all my attention span can handle right now.  Last night, I watched about six episodes of The Hills in a row, and I couldn’t stop thinking how damn cute Lauren’s perfectly wavy hair is.  Below is her author’s photo, and predictably, the ringlets are utter perfection.

My favorite method for fat, juicy curls like LC’s: apply mousse and a tiny bit of grooming cream to wet hair, then quickly blowdry.  (Spend one or two extra minutes on the hair near the crown and around the face, but don’t worry about making the rest of it look sleek; just get it dry.)  Starting about five or six inches down from the roots, near the ears, use a 1″ to 1.5″ curling iron–or a newer flat iron with rounded plates, like those by CHI or FHI–and curl the hair, wrapping the front pieces outward, away from the face.  Repeat all over the head, alternating the direction of the curl, and finish with another dab of grooming cream or shine serum, on the ends, and a shot of volumizing or soft-touch hairspray.

Let’s be real here. You might not want to be…you might despise yourself for it…you might proclaim that it’s everything wrong with the world…but you’re secretly, at least in part, kind of fascinated by The Hills…or, at the very least, the weird fact that its stars have suddenly become the biggest things in Hollywood. I spoke with Christine Symonds, celebrity hairstylist at Warren-Tricomi Los Angeles, who has been doing Lauren Conrad’s hair for three years, and who created her “soft, romantic” look last night. Lauren always looks cute as a button, with to-die-for hair…and she has Christine to thank.

Q: How do you decide upon styles for Lauren? Does she come to you with ideas, do you suggest styles, or is it usually collaborative?

Christine: Lauren is really great about having a vision about what she wants. She will tell me what her ideas are and more often then not I completely agree with her. We usually are always on the same page about what the final look should be.

Q: Can you give us the quick cheat-sheet version of how to re-create Lauren’s hair from last night?

Christine: We first curled her entire head of hair and then pulled the back section of her hair in a messy bun and left the 2 front sections out. With the section we left out we started twisting back pieces and securing them into the bun with bobby pins. We left out a few front pieces to leave the look feeling a little messy and undone. The key to mastering this look is making sure it doesn’t look too “perfect”.

Q: Looks pretty damn perfect to me!  What products do you use on her?

Christine: We used Warren Tricomi finishing cream and Redken hairspray to secure the look.

Between Fashion Rocks, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, the stars have been out in full, look-at-me! force recently.  This year’s VMAs were infinitely better than the trainwreck that we had to endure last year…but the bar had been set so low that it didn’t take much to outdo it.  It certainly wasn’t as good as the VMAs of my youth.  Sigh.

Britney’s back!  Clear-eyed!  Smiling!  And…well, looking not too damn bad!  (C’mon, haters, let’s give a little credit where credit is due.  I missed you, Brit.)

Photo from People.com

I was not necessarily digging Lindsay Lohan’s ensemble and hair, but the mega-wattage smile and sense of grounded calm she was sporting is a million times more beautiful, anyway.  Nice to see the former party girls cleaning up.

Photo from People.com

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Last night, I attended an LA Film Festival screening of American Teen, the Breakfast Club-like documentary that everybody was raving about at Sundance.  Not only was it one of the best movies I’ve seen in the last year (second only, perhaps, to There Will Be Blood in terms of movies I loved so much I wanted to eat them) but I predict that the cast are all going to be huge stars.  My amigo Eli Gonda produced it, so I scored an invite to the pre-party on the Paramount lot.  As I walked up, I spotted a blond Adonis…a guy so gorgeous that I thought, “He must be a model.  An actor.  A greek God.”  Close enough: his name is Mitch Reinholt, and he was literally the prettiest man I have ever seen in person.  Ever.  (He’s photogenic enough, but in the flesh, I’m talking Brad Pitt handsome.  I cannot overstate this!)  The star of the movie, meanwhile, is Hannah Bailey, an intelligent, vulnerable, ambitious gem of a human being (she’s like The Hills‘  anti-matter) who will rocket into a major, well-deserved career if there is any justice in this world.  By the end of the movie, the entire crowd was cheering and clapping, so invested were we in the compelling lives of these kids.  (The story of “geeky”–yet adorable–Jake Tusing is particularly touching.)

After the screening, everybody headed to Delancey for the after-party, and I made my way for about five seconds before having (annoyingly, and unexpectedly) to leave.  It was Mitch’s 21st birthday, too.  Sigh. Oh, well.

Mitch Reinholt and Hannah Bailey.  Young love gone awry…sob!

I was invited to the 2008 MTV Movie Awards Gifting Suite today, so I dropped by around lunch, not really knowing what to expect.  Holy free stuff, Batman!  It was an utter orgy of swag (gee, Jolie, think you should have realized that sooner, seeing as the invite had “gifting suite” in the title and all?) and I felt genuinely mortified as people tried to shove things at me.  All I could think was, “Don’t need that…don’t want that…maybe I should just grab things and give them to charity…do I know anybody who needs free dog food?…ooh, champagne! no, it’s too early in the day…”  In the end, I took a pair of Tag Jeans, plopped an energy drink into my purse, grabbed some t-shirts, underwear and face cream to throw into this weekend’s beauty sale…and surrendered just a little bit of my soul.  (As I left, I spotted Whitney Port from The Hills—my second Whitney sighting in three weeks—looking adorable in a multi-colored sundress.  If I can find a photo of her online, I’ll post later.)

Dear US Weekly,

For the love of God, please no more covers with Heidi Montag or Spencer Pratt on them.  Ever. 

Love, Jolie

Photo from USmagazine.com