A look back at old photos often leaves us wondering: What were we thinking? Thank goodness portrait mode wasn't around when we were going through that over-plucked brow phase or when pink hair streaks were a thing. Luckily, the majority of our beauty regrets are hidden deep in our mothers' old photo albums. And if you were to get your hands on Jennifer Garner's old family pictures, you'd see a bright-eyed teen burnt to a crisp after hours of sailing on her dad's boat.
She and her siblings did what most people did in the '80s: Layered on the oil and soaked in the sun — which she now knows was a bad move for the long run. "My sisters and I would just fry ourselves. We'd say, 'Let's get this first burn out of the way so we can be brown for the rest of the summer,'" she tells Refinery29 during a recent interview. "I just remember lying on this tiny bed with my little sister and both of us being so burnt that we could feel the heat coming off of our bodies."
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It wasn't until the sun damage started showing up in her late 30s that Garner, who is now a spokesperson for Neutrogena, was able to grasp the importance of sun protection. "I have sunscreen everywhere you look," she says. "I just wanted to stop the sun damage where it was. I tell everybody that this isn't a joke. You think you're getting away with it, but you're not." Now, she has a bottle of SPF moisturizer, like the Neutrogena Ultra Sheer formula, in every corner of her house — even in the key tray by the door.
And, surprisingly, that isn't the only beauty product Garner stores outside of the bathroom. "I have a hair brush drawer [in the kitchen], where I can do ponytails or hairstyles on the kids after they've had breakfast," she says. "And there's always something for me in there, in case I think of it as I'm running out the door." So, her entire makeup routine — which is pared down to just concealer, blush, mascara, and a lip pencil — can be found underneath her toaster.
But the one beauty product you won't find in any of Garner's drawers is lip balm. The 13 Going On 30 star recently Marie Kondo'd her home — an experience she shared on Instagram — and realized she had one too many. "Whether I'm looking in a drawer or at the bottom of my bag, the thing I hoard are lip treatments," she tells us. One of her favorites is the Neutrogena Hydroboost Lip Treatment. And even though these lip balms bring her joy, she knew she needed to share a few of her untouched products, adding, "I need to spread this joy around." As for all the fashion tape she also found during her Kondo purge, she's keeping that for emergency situations. Hey, you never know when a red-carpet dress will need a last-minute adjustment.