EXCLUSIVE: Why Trinny Woodall doesn't want her lookalike daughter Lyla Elichaoff to follow in her footsteps

For the last decade, Trinny Woodall and daughter Lyla Elichaoff have been each other's best friends.

And sometimes that means dishing out a bit of tough love.

Just a few weeks before Nine.com.au sat down for an intimate conversation with Woodall at her Park Hyatt suite in Sydney, she was on the other side of the globe helping her 22-year-old move into her new apartment in Madrid.

Lyla's attending university there after a stint in a smaller Spanish city and posed an all-too-relatable question to her mother before Woodall jetted to Australia.

"She said to me, 'Mummy, things are so much more expensive here,'" Woodall said.

Where some high-profile parents might have opened their wallets and asked how much it was going to cost, Woodall took the opposite approach.

"I said, 'Well, how you going to earn the money? What are you going to do?'" she said.

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"She sees that I work hard, so she understands a hard work ethic."

Woodall started Trinny London in 2017, when Lyla was a teenager, and had to sell her own home and clothes just to get it off the ground.

Lyla witnessed it all and inherited her mother's grit and ambition, along with her willowy figure and vibrant smile.

But her captivating brown eyes and wicked sense of humour came from her late father Jonathan Elichaoff, who passed when Lyla was 11.

Ever since, Woodall has had to fill the roles of mum and dad. It has been both a challenge and a privilege.

"She doesn't have a dad, I am her only parent, and she's my one child," Woodall said.

Balancing her career and ambition with her responsibilities as a parent wasn't always easy, but she clearly did something right because she and Lyla are closer than ever.

Woodall said their unique and powerful bond is built upon one very important thing: honesty.

"There's something Lyla's always said to me, and that's, 'You must tell me the truth,'" she revealed.

"Sometimes we can try and soften life for our kids, and what they see is that we just haven't been honest with them, so I think it is really important to be honest.

"And if Lyla thinks at any second I'm being too serious, she'll really take the piss!"

At just 22, Lyla has already faced challenges that have taught her resilience and made her determined to carve her own path in the world. Trinny couldn't be prouder.

Some people look at Lyla and see only a reflection of her parents, especially her beauty mogul mum.

But Lyla is more than her parentage and Woodall has encouraged her to be her own woman, both now and in the future.

Though Lyla makes regular appearances on Woodall's and is a big fan of Trinny London products, from the Trinity makeup sticks to the Take Back Time elixir, she won't be joining the family business any time soon.

In fact, the one time she interned at Trinny London, Woodall went out of her way to make sure Lyla didn't get the 'nepo baby' treatment.

"I said to my assistant, 'I don't want at any moment for her or other people to feel that she's my daughter,'" she said.

"I wouldn't want to put my team in that position."

The truth is Lyla could follow in her mother's footsteps if she wanted to.

She could get a job with Trinny London, work her way through the ranks, then take over one day when Woodall takes a step back.

But sometimes the most exciting part of being a parent is letting your child go out into the world and surprise you – at least, that's how Woodall sees it.

"A lot of people say, 'She's just like you', but I think Lyla's her own person, and she's going to be 100 per cent herself."

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