Salma Hayek Has Turned 60. This Seems Unnecessarily Provocative.

Salma Hayek has celebrated her 60th birthday by going skinny-dipping and looking so magnificent that I’m beginning to suspect she has made a private arrangement with time.

Sixty!

I’ve looked carefully at the photographs, and I can’t see a single sign that gravity has ever been introduced to her. Everything is still exactly where it was originally issued. Her skin glows, her hair tumbles beautifully down her back, and even naked in the ocean she looks composed. If I went skinny-dipping, concerned people on the shore would immediately begin searching for the overturned kayak.

How does she look so good?

She says she doesn’t use Botox. Of course she doesn’t. Apparently, she meditates. I have tried meditating, but I spend the entire time thinking about whether I turned the oven off and mentally composing arguments with people who annoyed me in 1997. None of this has made me look like Salma Hayek.

She also credits restorative yoga, juices and generally taking care of herself. I occasionally take care of myself too. Last week I remembered to moisturise both legs. Admittedly, I did one in the morning and the other just before bed, but nobody said the legs had to be done together.

Obviously, Salma has excellent genes. She also has access to expensive skincare, personal trainers, stylists, flattering lighting and probably somebody whose entire job is to follow her around holding a bowl of berries. I don’t begrudge her any of it. If I had her money, I would employ a full-time professional to slap biscuits out of my hand and another one to gently lower me to the floor whenever an exercise involved getting down there.

But money alone doesn’t explain it. Plenty of rich people look as though they’ve been left overnight in a hot car. Salma is simply spectacular. She has curves, she hasn’t starved herself into the shape of a bookmark, and she seems genuinely comfortable in her own skin. That may be the most attractive thing of all.

There is also something rather marvellous about a woman turning 60 and celebrating by taking her clothes off instead of quietly disappearing behind a sensible cardigan. Women have spent generations being told that we become invisible as we age. Salma appears to have responded by swimming naked through the middle of the argument.

Good for her.

I don’t expect to look like Salma Hayek when I turn 60—mainly because that particular ship has already sailed, hit an iceberg and been converted into a floating casino. But I do like the idea of refusing to become apologetic about ageing.

Perhaps that is her real secret. Good genes, excellent skincare, restorative yoga, enormous wealth—and absolutely no intention of becoming smaller just because she’s getting older.

Although I still think there may be witchcraft involved.