Sitting in a sun-drenched room of her California home, Jennifer Garner’s face lights up at the mere mention of two words: sun care. Peruse any online interview of the actress, and lodged right next to her name is her age, along with the product du jour she’s been loving. Everyone’s fascinated by how Garner maintains her youthful glow, and she’s passionate about the skin care category that produces results no amount of wishing dust can replicate. For the next 20 minutes, she waxes poetic about every sunscreen formula she employs with a discerning tone akin to a mom imparting wisdom, speaking with the expertise of a seasoned dermatologist rather than a paid spokesperson. But she is a mom—of three to be exact—one who has a sunscreen in the car door for mid-drive hand touch-ups (safely, of course), a sunscreen mist in her bag for, you guessed it, facial touch-ups—and the list goes on.
Sunscreen is Garner’s number one skin care non-negotiable and a cornerstone of her partnership with Neutrogena, which began in 2007. Each year, the mission remains the same: support Melanoma awareness and prevention. “17 years of talking about melanoma during Melanoma Awareness Month will definitely educate you,” she quips. Her curiosity to learn more about skin cancer led her to Neutrogena’s dermatologists and researchers, primed with all the answers to her questions.
“What is the most efficacious way of delivering sun protection to your skin and to your face? What are the barriers between people knowing they should do it and actually doing it? And how do we get rid of those barriers?” Garner shares, recalling the types of questions she asked experts. In its seven-year relationship with the Melanoma Research Foundation, Neutrogena has donated more than one million dollars to continue its educational efforts and raise awareness about skin cancer. However, both Garner and Neutrogena understand their efforts are only as good as the mode of delivery, and one machine is pushing news faster to younger generations than most: TikTok.
“[Suncare] is an area where TikTok is taking us backward. The Gen Z population, almost half of them, believes that a tan is better than sun protection or that a base tan is going to protect your skin from sunburn. And these things are not true. A tan is sun damage. Think of a piece of toast: you put a piece of bread in the toaster, you cook it, and it toasts. Yes, it’s all crunchy and delicious, but you have damaged the outer layer of that bread,” she explains.
Don’t be that bread. Ahead, Garner walks us through her suncare routine, favorite products, and why she’s anti anti-aging.
Before you started working with Neutrogena, how much did you know about melanoma, and what discoveries have you made in your own research?
Growing up, my dad loved to sail. We didn’t have a fancy sailboat; we had one that was 23 feet long, and the five of us would be on this boat for three weeks at a time on the Chesapeake Bay, which was like a nine-hour drive from our house. When you’re on a boat, there’s nowhere to go, so you’re pretty much just exposed to the sun. Luckily for us, our mom was a big believer in sunscreen, and we grew up being pretty careful about the sun and being big believers in Neutrogena. That’s why I ended up working with them, because even as a kid, I used their beauty bar. I have two sisters, and we would all fight over the beauty bar—even my dad used it. I knew to protect myself from the sun growing up.
[With too much sun exposure], you are damaging your skin in an irreversible way. It may be the burn heals, and it doesn’t show up, but you have increased the probability of getting skin cancer when that happens. So we have to take this more seriously, and you have to look at it and just say, I don’t want to have skin cancer when I’m older. Skin cancer is preventable. All we have to do is protect ourselves from the sun. And there are so many easy ways to do that with Neutrogena.
How do you incorporate sun care into your skincare routine?
First of all, I always have sunscreen in the door of my car, just so that if a kid is trying to escape and I realize they did not take care of it at home, I can take care of it as they’re going into school. I treat it like brushing my teeth. Even if it’s the dead of winter, and I think I’ll be inside all day, I’m not questioning every day: Will I need sunscreen? I just put it on, and it’s on my skin whether I need it or not. During the summer months, like starting now, I might increase my SPF and reapply more often. But it’s a non-negotiable for me to have sunscreen on my face, body, and definitely my neck, and decolletage.
I use [the] Ultra Sheer Moisturizing Face Serum that is excellent because it’s also a primer—it hydrates, is really nice under makeup, and smooths your skin out. On my body, often I’ll start with Dry Touch, and it’s exactly what it sounds like; it’s a dry touch lotion that does not leave you oily at all and absorbs all the way into your skin. I will use the Ultra Sheer Mist or sprays like the Beach Defense Spray if I’m out and about. Otherwise, the mist really envelops your skin so nicely, and it absorbs in really quickly. You’ll never see it on your clothes. You don’t have to rub, rub, rub. It just leaves you with a little bit of a dewy look. Those are my favorites.
How does your routine change for the warmer seasons?
I’m always pretty careful to go back and forth between Rapid Wrinkle Repair, which is just Neutrogena’s retinol line. Retinol will change your skin, period. I like to go back and forth between the Rapid Wrinkle Repair line—like the serum, the lotion, and the eye cream at night. I wouldn’t have thought you could use retinol close to your eyes, but it’s been tested like crazy. All that does is encourage your skin cells to turn over and boost new skin cells. On the other side, I really love the whole Hydro Boost series because hyaluronic acid is the other side of the coin. Hyaluronic acid links moisture to the surface of your skin. When you have moisture in your skin, like you do in your beautiful youth, you’re plump and dewy, and your skin looks bouncy, and ebullient, and shiny, and gorgeous. When you get in your 50s, like I am, you have to fight harder for that moisture. One of the best ways to do that is with hyaluronic acid.
We live in a youth-obsessed culture and everyone’s chasing anti-aging this and that. Where do you stand on the aging conversation?
The connotation of aging is so negative, but isn’t it a gift to age? Anti-aging is not a great outcome. All of us are hoping to age; the best case scenario is that you age because you can’t stay 25, 35, 45. You are going to age, unless you stop, and that’s not something I want to do. I want to keep going. I want to be joyful in my life. I don’t want to rail against where I am on the spectrum of my life cycle. I want to love it. There’s so much good that comes with growing older; you learn what matters, what to let go of, and you learn how to be present and really listen to people around you. If you have kids, you get to a place where you’ve had this long relationship with your friends, peers, loved ones, and kids. Even better if you get to have funny kids. What more can you ask? I don’t see the benefit in looking towards something that’s so surface-level by trying to avoid anti-aging.
Here’s the thing, if you are a kid, you do not need retinol—you need sunscreen. That’s anti-aging, sun protection.
Speaking of Gen-Z and TikTok, everyone has been sharing their “unsexy” products. What are some of yours?
I think pretty much [all] my products are kind of unsexy. I don’t think it’s that sexy to spray yourself with a sunscreen mist, but then again, it leaves you a little dewy, so that’s a little bit sexy. Then, there’s retinol—I can’t say retinol is the sexiest thing in the world to talk about.
It has been 20 years since 13 Going On 30. What advice would you give 13-year-old Jennifer?
Little 13-year-old Jennifer, I would tell her that if a book is assigned in class, to read it all the way through. Don’t be a dork and skim it enough to answer that day. The whole point is [that] you don’t get anything if you’re not actually doing the work. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to believe and try to practice that how you do anything is how you do everything. There were some things I worked really hard at when I was 13: I was a devoted babysitter, a dedicated ballet student, and a serious creative writer. But if I could go back now, I would apply that idea—how you do anything is how you do everything—to that little kid who thought: I can take this or leave it. No, actually do it all. Be thorough.
This interview has been edited and condensed.