Sara and Erin Foster on Skin Secrets and Aging in Hollywood

Sara and Erin Foster are, simply put, sister goals. The duo is behind the clothing brand Favorite Daughter, the hugely popular Netflix show Nobody Wants This, their podcast World’s First Podcast and are now fronting skin-care brand Dermalogica’s latest campaign for its hero product, Daily Microfoliant ($69).

The gentle powder exfoliator—activated with water—is the number-one powder exfoliant in the U.S., with one selling every 21 seconds. Made with rice powder enzymes, salicylic acid and rice bran, the formula also contains colloidal oatmeal and alphahydroxy acids (AHAs) to gently brighten and smooth skin.

To celebrate the partnership, we sat down with Erin and Sara, who shared everything from what Hollywood gets wrong about aging to what they wish they had learned about skin care when they were younger—and, of course, what they imagine the skin-care routines of the Nobody Wants This sisters Joanne and Morgan might look like.

Walk us through your morning routines and your skin-care routines.

Erin Foster: “I’m really a minimalist. So I wake up in the morning. If I have it in me to go downstairs and make my daughter milk before she wakes up, I’m really impressed with myself. Or else, I’m kind of juggling her and doing that at the same time, and then while she’s drinking her milk, I hightail it to the bathroom to wash my face, put on moisturizer and brush my teeth. Typically, in the morning, I’m just putting on a face oil and a moisturizer. I like to exfoliate at night. I exfoliate at night with the Daily Microfoliant. I do it three times a week before I go to bed, because on the other two nights I’m putting on tretinoin. Very simple. So I’m either doing tretinoin, or I’m doing the Daily Microfoliant.

There’s something about a foaming product that feels very luxurious. I also really love that the Daily Microfoliant has a little travel size ($19.50). Not a lot of brands make a good travel size for a product. And my husband steals mine all the time.”

Sara Foster: “I feel like we were lied to about actives and needing so many ingredients and needing a 20-step routine. I’ve done all that, and my skin doesn’t react well to it. I now know I have sensitive skin. I really keep it simple. I do all my skin care at night. I love the Microfoliant because I always say it ‘washes the day away,’ and it just preps my skin for moisture.

I wake up pretty early at 6:30 or 6:45 a.m. My kids go to two different schools. I’m packing lunches, packing snacks, doing hair, picking out outfits, arguing with my 15-year-old about whether she’ll get her phone in the morning, then dropping one off and then the other. And then a full day of work and juggling all the things.

I do my vitamins and all my skin care at night. I don’t wash my face in the morning. I’m like, ‘What am I washing off?’ Also, nothing penetrates your skin if you haven’t prepped it properly. At night, you really do need to do that with the Microfoliant too. It’s not harsh. It’s really good for people with sensitive skin.”

What’s one skin-care step you’ll never skip?

EF: “Moisturizer. I’m obsessed with not feeling dry, so I always have my bag filled with hand creams and moisturizers. Dry skin just ages you.”

SF: “Sunscreen. I’m now at a point where I do not forget my sunscreen. I really notice a difference when I look at how many hours a day I spend in the car. I have a UVA-blocking window tint on my car, but it’s not enough, because you can’t do the windshield. I’m not one of those freaks, but I really do try to never forget my sunscreen now.”

Do you have any skin-care secrets you’ve learned and wish you knew sooner?

SF: “Less is more. I wish that I had been told earlier that less is more. We think in our minds, as I said before, that the more you do, the better you’re going to look. If you do 20 steps, then you’re going to look 20 times better. And I now know that that’s not true, at least for my skin type.

For sensitive skin, when I am doing less, keeping it simple and using trusted products that we know work (science-backed and real efficacy), it’s a three-step process. My skin is plumper. The elastin is more bouncy. It’s brighter. It’s just better. If I’m only going to do three steps, I’m going to exfoliate, because that’s like the cleanser. I don’t cleanse after the exfoliator. Some people might, but for me, that’s enough. It’s dewy enough, and it does its job. Then I use moisturizer and sunscreen.”

EF: “Food. What you eat and drink really affects you. And so people are always thinking topically, but you have to think internally. The stuff that you’re polluting your body with really comes out in your skin. I really notice a difference with supplements and food and alcohol; all that stuff really comes through in your skin.”

SF: “When Valentina [Sara’s daughter] eats a lot of sugar, her acne gets worse. And we know it, we’ve been told this, but we forget sometimes. I’m remembering all these skin-care things. Now, having a 15-year-old who’s at that age, I’m reminded of all the things that I did wrong.”

We’re sitting in front of the vanity with Joanne, Morgan and Esther from ‘Nobody Wants This.’ Walk us through their skin-care philosophy and what you think their skin-care routine looks like.

SF: “I feel like Joanne’s not washing her makeup off at the end of the night. She’s just maybe going to bed.”

EF: “Sara, you think so low of her. This is crazy. She’s not dirty.”

SF: “No, it’s not that she’s dirty. It’s just carefree. But the writer disagrees. So tell us.”

EF: “I think that Morgan would be much more focused on the newest, coolest product. Morgan’s doing a red light mask every night, and Joanne loses hers and doesn’t know where her charger, is so she can’t use it.”

SF: “She doesn’t even know how it works.”

EF: “Yeah, Joanne says she’s gonna do that stuff, and then forgets to do it. But Morgan is like, ‘I’m not gonna forget my routine.’ And Esther gets too many lasers, too many procedures. She just would be going into a bunch of med spas and saying, ‘Give me the works.’ Esther is the person that, at some point, the girls would have to be like, ‘You need to chill in the lasers. You’re doing too much.’”

Is there anything about beauty and aging you wish were reflected more honestly in Hollywood and on-screen?

EF: “I think it’s really great for people to have resources to help them look youthful. It used to be that you wanted to get work done that made you look like yourself, but younger. Now it’s acceptable to get work done that makes you look like an alien, and people are totally okay with that. People aren’t striving for the natural look anymore. I just wish the natural look were still more in vogue. Being dishonest about it really bums me out, because it really makes women feel bad about themselves.”

SF: “Now we have this whole generation growing up where, and I find myself doing this, I’ll look at women who are in their 40s or early 50s, and I’ll be like, ‘How are they aging so well? What are they doing? I don’t understand. How are their cheekbones so high? And how do they have zero jowls? Like, what am I doing wrong?’ And then someone will be like, ‘Are you insane? They’ve had two facelifts.’

I’m somebody who’s very confident for the most part, and even I find myself in this loop of feeling kind of bad about myself because I’m comparing myself to people who I think are doing it just ‘the right way.’ But then I come to find out they’ve had two facelifts. But they don’t say they’ve had two facelifts. They just say, ‘Yeah, I wake up early, I work out and I’m very hydrated.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.