Years ago, when I first started wearing hair extensions, I would get mail from young girls, or young girls would come up to me and they would say, 'Tyra you have the most beautiful hair, like I could never grow hair like that!' And I would say 'Child, this is a weave!'
On 'America's Top Model,' I've always told my girls to smile with their eyes. We call it 'smizing.' Over the years, it's actually become part of pop culture. I would be walking down the street, and girls would say, 'Smize!'
On 'America's Next Top Model,' I mentor girls on television. When that TV goes off, I actually mentor other girls in the modeling industry - girls that have not been on 'Top Model,' but who appear in 'Vogue' worldwide.
'America's Next Top Model' is not a bunch of Barbies - it's a lot of girls that are atypically beautiful.
With 'America's Next Top Model,' I've always cast girls who the industry might call 'plus size' but I like to call 'fiercely real.' That was always important to me.
Us brown-skinned girls get ashy if we don't moisturize.