This afternoon, there will be eliminations again. The day starts with evaluating the shoot that the girls have done in the past few days. To avoid influencing each other, Anouk, Dirk, and I review the footage separately. The editor Riena is very strict about that. One by one, we walk to the courtyard of our hotel where Riena, armed with a laptop, phone, and cigarette, waits for us.

After this session, it's make-up time. As the host, Anouk naturally has a personal make-up artist, but Dirk and I share one. Now, Dirk needs very little and it takes, say, about three minutes to powder him for TV, so I have our make-up artist Claudia all to myself for a full two hours.

Claudia is an Italian New Yorker with a French mother. She tells me about the top models she has ‘worked with’, convinces me that I really, REALLY, REALLY need to go to Sardinia (Bluest water in the world), shows me funny videos like this  and tells me all about her Italian gay friend who has been in a relationship with a man for four years and that he is going to tell his Italian parents about it today. After all, it's gay pride, so there's no better day.

You have to pamper make-up artists. Because they work hard and also because they will make you more beautiful if they are having a good time with you. Anouk always airs out her hotel room and lights a cozy scented candle before Sandrine, her make-up artist, turns her room into a make-up room. I have brought some nice things ‘in house’. Healthy bars, some mineral water, and fresh fruit. Claudia is the type who thinks of everyone except, indeed, herself.

Now we have two lovely hours where she brings out the beauty and wipes away the less flattering (I suddenly have a huge pimple on my chin). During our session, she confides in me that her relationship with her Italian lover is coming to an end. He can't settle in New York, and she has no intention of going back to Italy. She looks tired, but she is definitely not crying. She has become far too New York for that.

Because we always take way too much time for chat and make-up, I slip into my outfit in three minutes. The phone rings, the taxi is growling outside the door. The recordings are in Brooklyn, just on the other side of the bridge, quite a ride. It's about 40 degrees in New York, so once we arrive in Red Hook Brooklyn, my face could use some powder again. Claudia sets me down in the sweating production office and gets to work with a skilled eye. When she addresses the problem area ‘chin and pimple’, I ask her: “How is the motherfucker?” She looks at me and laughs; “You mean my boyfriend?”

Really Claudia, just for you, this adventure could last for weeks for me.