The America's Next Top Model house was taken over by a hazmat cleaning crew. The girls' lack of sanitation gave Tyra Banks the perfect segue to let them know they would be going to Hawaii for the duration of the competition.

The girls hopped a plane and ended up in a beautiful (and still clean) house in Maui. Jennifer's winning commercial from the previous week was playing in every room. Even though they were all excited to be in Hawaii, it didn't stop Brittany and Erin from complaining about each other.

The models were taken to the beach for their first challenge in Maui. They were taught the basics of surfing to use in a photo shoot challenge where they had to keep their poise and balance. Since they were shooting on a surfboard, the girls had one shot each to get the best pose.

Laura was completely thrown off balance, and got severely sunburned. Sundai didn't know where the camera was and ended up looking the opposite direction. Nicole looked tall. I'm surprised that's still a compliment throughout this entire cycle. Jennifer's shot made her look like she was doing an Egyptian dance, not a modeling. Brittany didn't do anything special worth mentioning. This left Erin to be the challenge winner. Jay Manuel said she found symmetry with the board and pulled off an actual model-like shot.

Erin won a helicopter ride and decided to take Brittany and Nicole with her. Her choice in companions was shocking because she has been complaining about the two of them non-stop for weeks! Either way, Erin wasn't even that impressed with her helicopter ride over beautiful Hawaii. She was upset that it wasn't tangible, like the jewelry challenge or a $1000 Wal-Mart gift card. Spoiled much?

This week the actual photo shoot, done by Tyra, was themed around the Hawaiian concept of Hapa -- two different races combined. Each girl was given two distinct nationalities and had to combine them into an editorial photo shoot. For the most part, the clothing and hairstyles did most of the work and seemed a little stereotypical. But, it was an interesting challenge. Praise definitely goes out to the hair and makeup people on this particular shoot.

Nicole shined again this week. She combined the Madagascar race of Malagasy and Japanese. During the photo shoot, Tyra claimed that Nicole rocked her world. The panel could barely utter any words besides stunning and graceful. She was the first girl called this week during elimination.

Next was Jennifer, the dark horse in this competition (in my opinion). I think Jennifer just might come through and win this entire thing. She has been doing consistently better since the season started. This week she combined Botswana and Polynesian culture. The judges said she looked very "National Geographic," but were slightly concern the photo didn't have the most flattering angles to scream model.

I was nervous for Laura this week, but was very pleased when she made it through. We saw numerous confessionals from her (always a bad sign in reality TV), and she got terribly sunburned to boot. Luckily, her skin was darkened with makeup for her photo shoot so she could represent Mexican and Greek people. Her photo shoot didn't start out great, but she asked Tyra to be brutally honest about her work. After the constructive criticism, Laura stepped her game up and had quite the transformation. While the judges loved the photo, they were worried that she wasn't bringing enough high fashion to the table. But Laura is by far one of my favorites this season; I'd hate to see her leave before some other less appealing people.



Sundai was called next. Nigel Barker is getting especially put off that she only has one look, but Tyra keeps commenting that she does the look well. Sundai was a combination of Moroccan and Russian for her hapa. She looked fierce in her photo, but photographed very young. Tyra told her she looked 12; she also said during deliberation that she could be in a Gap Kids advertisement. Ouch.

This left Brittany and Erin in the bottom two. Erin had no idea what to do when portraying Tibetan and Egyptian combined. She brought no emotion to set. Tyra felt her look was too commercial for this editorial shoot. Unfortunately, the whiny, ungrateful Erin lived to model another day. Even though I've never been the biggest Brittany fan, I don't think she deserved to go home over Erin. But, Brittany's stiff and calculated poses won't get her far in the modeling world. She was the first to be "voted off the island." Too bad.

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Story by Beth Wickman

Starpulse contributing writer