PHOTO: Robert Trachtenberg / trunkarchi

Her name is synonymous with addictive television. As a producer, she rules an entire night (TGIT) on ABC with her female-led, diverse casts on Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder, yet somehow still has time to write a best-selling book (Year of Yes) and partner with Dove’s Real Beauty Productions as creative director. Here, Shonda Rhimes spills her secrets.

My DGAF attitude: My sisters and I were actually sitting around the other day, talking about the fact that we grew up in a weird way: not caring what anybody else thinks. This sounds crazy, but we’re not concerned by other people’s thoughts about how we should look or be or think. I think about how to impart that to my three girls. I want to make sure they know who they are, not some reflection of what they think beauty is.

My “I look fantastic” headspace: I think once you’re there, you’re there. For me, it was also saying to myself, “Look at all these women you know—you think they’re beautiful and interesting and fantastic and fabulous. Why don’t you compliment yourself the same way?” I don’t necessarily look at anybody and think, This is my beauty standard, because my beauty standard is now me.

My confidence boosters (which will be very familiar to Grey’s fans): I’m very music-oriented, and so for me it’s playing a lot of music very loud—and dancing. I firmly believe I can dance anything out. But I’m also very big on long, long, long showers. You can shower anything out too.

My can’t-live-without-it beauty ritual: I’m a mask-oholic. I do a mask every single day, all different kinds. Farmacy has a really good one.

My makeup extremes: I do not wear makeup every day, except if I’m being filmed, in which case I wear a very thick layer of it.

My early TV influences: We didn’t watch a lot of television growing up, but I remembered when Lisa Bonet and the women on A Different World showed up. There were very few examples of women who looked like me. And I don’t particularly mean [only] women of color but women who looked like actual women, who had hips and ­bodies.

My hope for the evolution of beauty ideals: Dove showed me a study where 69 percent of women said they don’t see themselves reflected on television and in advertisements, in movies or anything. That idea of being erased—where there’s somebody out there who’s being defined as the girl, the woman, the smart person, the hot chick, and none of them are you—is still so damaging to me…. We put out a call on social media asking women and girls for their definition of beauty. We got thousands of submissions, and we’ve done three videos so far. One was with a woman, Kylee, who’s from a conservative town. Her mother, a hairdresser, raised her in this very feminine, girly way; she just never felt like herself. So she cut her hair short and opened a barbershop. She created what she feels is a safe place in Salt Lake City, where she cuts hair for women and men, and they can define their own notion of what beauty is. Working on stories like this, it felt like another way to really reach women, and allow young girls to have a way to see themselves.