Mrs King won her second consecutive editorial stylist of the year award at Sunday night’s Industry Awards in Auckland.
She says that she has achieved everything she has wanted to in competitive hairdressing.
"Over the last three years I’ve done a lot of competing and it’s done huge things for my career, huge things for my business and huge things for my team. It’s given us opportunities that we’ve never had."
"I want to make people realise what you can gain out of them. In three years the stuff I’ve done has inspired people to realise that you can come out of nowhere."
She said she will now go into "semi-retirement" from competitive hairdressing to take a behind-the-scenes role.
"I’ve achieved all I set out to with the competing ... I’ve kind of realised that if I continue down that path I’d have to be ready to make that next step and that’s not where I’m comfortable. I’m comfortable behind the scenes."
Otago and Southland had three other winners at Sunday night’s awards, with Sophie Squires (under four years in the industry), Caren Mackay (over four years in the industry) and Kylie Hayes (Otago editorial stylist of the year and editorial stylist of the year — colour concept) also taking home trophies.
