My job as a beauty editor has landed me in some pretty memorable situations, including showering in the middle of a desert in Chile and strolling through a tulip field in the Netherlands—and that’s just in the last month. Now, I can add running my hands through Salma Hayek Pinault’s hair in a suite at The Carlyle hotel on a random Wednesday morning to the list.
Let me explain. I was offered an interview with Hayek Pinault under the auspices of her partnership with Ultherapy Prime, a non-invasive device that boosts your body’s natural production of collagen and elastin through ultrasound energy, thus resulting in a tighter, more lifted look. Ultherapy first launched in the U.S. 11 years ago, and Ultherapy Prime is an evolution of the technology—the new machine makes the treatments about 20 percent faster, and gives real-time visualization at three different depths below the skin so the provider can better assess and target the area being treated.
My job as a beauty editor has also landed me in a lot of dermatologists’ offices, and I’ve had the treatment done myself—along my browbones to help lift the skin around my deep set, hooded eyes—and found it to be both painless and effective. I share this anecdote with Hayek Pinault, at which point our conversation turns from an interview into show and tell: she stretches open the collar of her blouse to display her baby-smooth, wrinkle-free décolleté, which, she says, has been treated with Ultherapy Prime.
Next, Hayek Pinault—who is 58 but, like a four and a half year old who can’t wait to turn five, declares several times that she’s “nearly” 60—pulls back her hair. She points to her ear—an area where surgical scars are often discreetly tucked—to show me she hasn’t had a facelift. “I have no plastic surgery,” she says, adding, “no filler!”
Moments later, Hayek Pinault flips her head forward to show me that she also doesn’t have any extensions in, and invites me to run my fingers through her hair to confirm myself. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to return to an upright position until I do, so… I do. I feel nothing except exceptionally smooth, thick strands. “I’m not bullshitting you at all,” she says. (For the record, I never doubted her.)
Hayek Pinault credits her impressive head of hair to the fact that she stopped coloring it about two years ago. Today, there are a few wisps of silver framing her face, more so at her temples. “My hair doesn't like to be dyed,” she says. “I look better with healthy hair that’s white.” Her at-home routine involves applying oil at the ends and the occasional DIY mask: “I did something with the [pit] of an avocado,” she says. “You grind it.”
If you’re wondering how an Oscar-nominated actor and celebrated director and producer finds time to grind an avocado pit for the purposes of a hair mask, you should know that Hayek Pinault—who takes a bath each morning and likes to put on music while she takes her makeup off—is very committed to creating beauty rituals. “It’s gratifying to spend time with yourself; it really lifts you up,” she says. “We’re very ritualistic, women.”
When I ask if she’s dabbled in dermatological interventions before discovering Ultherapy Prime, Hayek Pinault says this is her first foray. “I stayed away; I waited,” she says. “I didn’t fall into the traps that some people do in their 30s, all the peels… your skin looks so strange afterwards. Then it looks good, but first it looks strange.”
Ultimately, though, she has respect for everyone’s personal aesthetic choices: “[As women], we’re artists,” she says, nestling into a plush sofa cushion. “We are our own work of art.”
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