Salma Hayek Pinault Reveals Her Routine for Youthful Skin

Salma Hayek Pinault’s daily skincare routine is refreshingly bare-bones. No retinol, no exfoliating peels, and absolutely no injectables. She doesn’t even commit to a morning face wash—a tip she learned from her grandmother. “Your skin doesn’t get dirty while you’re sleeping,” the award-winning actress and producer quips over Zoom.

That doesn’t mean she’s against the occasional in-office procedure: “I have been using radiofrequency for years. That is the only thing I did,” she adds. “It was working for me, and then at some point, because I’m 58, I felt like I hit a plateau, especially with my neck—under the jaw, to be very specific. [I] started to feel like a turkey.”

It’s as if she manifested the call from Merz Aesthetics to discuss a collaboration with Ultherapy Prime, an FDA-cleared noninvasive treatment that uses ultrasound energy to stimulate collagen and elastin production, thus making skin look extra firm and plump. “I said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna give it a try, and if it works, we can continue the conversations,'” she recounts. Considering she has officially been named the first global brand ambassador for Ultherapy Prime, we can safely assume the treatment was a smashing success.

“It made me feel safe—the fact that they could actually be looking at my collagen in real time,” she shares. “Normally, between two and three months is when you see the results. I started seeing the results in the second week.” Of course, every candidate is different, but most people notice gradual improvements that lead to a more natural-looking effect. In fact, many commonly refer to Ultherapy as the “nonsurgical facelift,” given its ability to tighten the skin, sans incisions or downtime. “It is the gold standard for lifting, and it targets the SMAS (superficial musculoaponeurotic system) layer, which is the same layer we would lift in a facelift,” board-certified plastic surgeon Jennifer Levine, MD., previously told Who What Wear about the procedure.

There’s a major misconception in beauty that people who opt for in-office treatments must have a high-maintenance skincare routine. With Hayek Pinault, that could not be more false. “Chica, I am so, so, so busy. I have hundreds of [at-home] tools that I bought and never use,” she tells me. “Have you seen my white hair? I just can’t bother to [dye] it every three weeks, sit there for hours… I mean, I’d rather just have the white hair.” Yes, noninvasive procedures like Ultherapy tend to be pricey, but in terms of time commitment, the investment is pretty minimal. Ultherapy requires only one session to see results, and they tend to last about a year without touch-ups. “I like really strong, effective—but not frequent—things that make sense,” Hayek Pinault adds.