Claudette Powell, Claudette Powell via TikTok
- Sister Monica goes by @nunsenseforthepeople on TikTok and has over 48,000 followers.
- She shared her beauty tips after getting "hundreds" of requests to drop her skincare routine.
- Her "nunly skincare" video went viral, amassing over 277,000 views on TikTok.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Claudette Monica Powell, an Episcopal nun who goes by the name Sister Monica, shared her beauty tips with her 48,000 TikTok followers after "hundreds of people" began asking for her skincare routine daily.
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.
"I started getting more and more followers," she told Insider. "So I said, if people want to ask me questions about the religious life, that would be great. But they started asking me about my skincare routine. Literally nobody in my entire life has ever asked me for beauty tips ever."
In the skincare video, which has over 277,000 views, Sister Monica said: "I thought people would be asking questions about transubstantiation and Gregorian chant, but the ladies want the nunly skincare tips."
Sister Monica told her followers that she "doesn't really have" a specific skincare routine but was happy to share a few tips.
"Low lighting is a girl's best friend," she joked, explaining that she shoots content in an area of the convent with very "good lighting."
She also credited her youthful complexion to decades of avoiding sun. Ever since the '90s, Sister Monica said direct sunlight has given her migraines so she started using an umbrella which "adds to the whole eccentric Mary Poppins" vibe she projects.
Sister Monica added that an Aveeno oatmeal wash from the baby department is her go-to because everything else irritates her skin.
Summing up her tips, she advised followers: "Carry a parasol and shoot in low light, and use baby stuff on your skin."
Sister Monica is the Sister Superior at her convent in New Jersey, but before starting religious life at 46, she spent 20 years working as a photo editor in Hollywood and studied acting at NYU.
"My only regret is that I didn't do it when I was 18 years old, because I would have been living as my authentic self, but the interesting part about the way God works is that all the skills I picked as a photo editor and as an actor are serving me in religious life now," she told Insider.
Speaking about the beauty industry, Sister Monica said: "I think women are really encouraged by the media to spend a lot of money on themselves and I was always very resistant to that. I just thought this is who I am and if you don't like it, too bad."