@nunsenseforthepeople/TikTok
July 26, 2021, 7:54 am
A 55-year-old Episcopal nun has gone viral with a TikTok video in which she earnestly (and delightfully) shares skincare tips—since she appears much younger than her age on the platform.
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Claudette Powell, who posts TikToks at the awesomely-named account @nunsenseforthepeople, has captured more than 300,000 views since taking the time to answer queries about her relatively youthful appearance in a two-minute TikTok video.
As the caption to her video remarks, “I thought people would be asking questions about transubstantiation and Gregorian chant, but the ladies want the nunly skincare tips.”
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After thanking people for checking in with her, she observed, “People have been sending me direct messages asking me what my skincare routine is, which is really hilarious to me, because I don’t really have one.” She did go on to say, however, that could shed some light on what makes her appear younger than she really is on TikTok.
The first thing she emphasized was avoiding the sun — which is easier to do as a nun than in some other professions.
“Seriously, since the late 1990s I haven’t been able to go out in the sun,” she confessed. “I get migraines from the sun, so when I go out in the sun, I have to walk around with a sunshade or an umbrella and that, of course, fits the whole eccentric Mary Poppins schoolmarm vibe that I constantly project.”
She also shed light—albeit a dim, soft light on another tip that’s served her well online.
“I used to work in the photography business,” she explained, “so whenever I shoot these videos, I stand here in good lighting; that’s why I usually stand here. And in low lighting, because low lighting is a girl’s best friend.”
The screen caption accompanying that line said, hilariously, “I look fantastic in pitch darkness.”
Powell also went on to say that she doesn’t spend a lot of money generally, and was cheap even before she took a vow of poverty.
“My skin is allergic to just about everything on earth,” she said. “So I wash my face once a day, and I had to use things like the Aveeno oatmeal body wash-slash-shampoo that you get in this baby department at the grocery store for six bucks. So that’s what I use on my skin.”
She then summed up: “Carry a parasol, and shoot in low light, and use baby stuff on your skin.”
According to Insider, “Sister Monica, 55, joined TikTok to make ‘random funny videos’ for friends and her sister, but found herself becoming somewhat TikTok famous after a video she made about a wild turkey terrorizing her New Jersey convent blew up last month.”
That video shows the turkey in an idyllic convent setting, though soundtracked to the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.,” with screen captions reading “Eats all our flowers,” “Destroyed the vegetable garden,” “Scratched up a car roof,” and then, “Totally punk rock,” with an accompanying cartoon of a skull with a mohawk.
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Comments found her delightful, and speculated that being a nun might help, with one observer pointing out, “It’s amazing what no husband or screaming babies can do for your skin!” and another noting, “I bet swearing off men helps too.”
She acknowledged the first comment with laughter, and said of the second, “Not gonna lie. I think the absence of relationship stress helps.”
*First Published: July 26, 2021, 7:54 am
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