After a month of head-to-head battles between 64 of the baddest hair looks ever, salon owner and color specialist Dani King of Blanton, PA emerged as the grand champion of American Salon's BEAUTY BADNESS 2025: The Fiercest Hair on Instagram.
King's look edged out that of celebrity wig artist Meaghan Masterson Louis of Hauppage, NY in the Championship round of the March Madness-inspired tournament, where head-to-head battles are decided by public votes.
King's look, titled “It’s LIT,” earned 56 percent of the final vote to clinch the championship.
“It’s crazy that I was up against Meaghan, because she’s a huge inspiration to me,” King says. “She’s incredible with wigs and she’s the inspiration as to why I even wanted to work with them in the first place. I voted for her every round up until that last one."
King created her vertical-striped winning look with neons by her favorite color brand, Danger Jones. “I was working with Danger Jones vivids back when they were Pulp Riot, and kind of leached onto them when they launched” in 2023, she says.
“I fell in love with this brand because I feel very seen with them. Their support is amazing. I feel like I’m not alone in this big scary industry,” she says.
“I love everything they stand for and I love their products. The vivids are fun, the neons are a blast.”
Her winning look was one of her favorite projects. “It came out exactly the way I’d envisioned it,” she says. “The first time I did this specific prism technique, I had to overdirect everything and thought, I can’t do this process on a person, they’ll hate it. That’s why I went to a wig. You can do anything you want on a mannequin.”
King's salon is located upstairs from the tattoo studio owned by her husband Derek, with whom she shares three kids. She says their hometown is small, but that everyone came together to rally for her win, voting daily and getting others to vote as well.
“It was literally everyone I know,” she says, “and then they would tell their friends and people at their jobs to vote for me. This community loves competitions,” she says with a laugh.
“I would post about it on social media all day every day. I made sure every client that came in would get out their phones and vote. At the end I was getting so many votes because my clients, especially, rallied for me and said, we got this for you.”
King says her hometown support means the world to her. She’s lived and worked in the area her whole life, graduating from Empire Beauty School in nearby Redding at 19. She worked in a salon for a few years before setting up her own studio at her parents’ house.
“I had a tiny salon in their basement with a shampoo bowl, a station, and I had a decent clientele. Down there with the cat litterboxes. It wasn’t ideal,” she laughs.
After a couple years she opened her salon, Dani King Hair Studio. “It was really important to me that I own a salon, because my dad did not want me to go to beauty school,” she recalls. “He said, There’s no money in it. He wanted me to go into nursing.”
Her father caved in about her career choice when she told him she wanted to eventually own a salon. “Now that I’m doing it, he’s so proud,” she says. “Now he’s my biggest supporter. He was one of those people going around work every day getting everyone to vote.
"I worked my ass off to get to where I'm at, honestly," she says, "so I'm really proud of where I came from."
King plans to continue working with wigs, particularly in creating them for patients going through cancer treatment. “I’m going to take more classes on wig care and really lean into that,” she says.
“I’ve had clients diagnosed with cancer and I had to shave their heads. The first time I made a wig for them, I felt so good about it. I thought, this is what I need to be doing,” she says.
“I love making people feel good. That’s why I went to beauty school in the first place! There’s nothing like seeing that smile.”