Salma Hayek's secret to covering her grays is this thrifty, unexpected trick

Earlier this week, Salma Hayek shared her soups-to-nuts beauty secrets with Vogue, including highly specific makeup and skin-care techniques and the exact products she uses to look as good as she does. It's a fascinating watch. In the 13-minute video, the 58-year-old starts out in a sheet and eye mask and proceeds to take her bare skin from fresh-faced to full-on glam. Most of what she reveals is what you'd expect from a celebrity who can afford to buy anything and has sat in the chairs of some of the most talented makeup artists in the world. She favors the highest of high-end beauty lines, including Gucci, Chanel, Sisley Paris, La Mer and Yves Saint Laurent — and if you were to invest in the products from this routine, they would set you back a whopping $1,780.

However, toward the end of the video, with her face red-carpet ready, Hayek shares a trick I hadn't anticipated from someone so, well, fancy. After pulling her long, damp hair down from a towel, she shows the camera her sprinkling of grays and explains that, while she doesn't dye her hair, she does cover her silver streaks with mascara.

Using mascara to cover a patch or two of gray hair is nothing new. When I worked for women's magazines in the 2000s, this was a last-minute trick I often saw makeup artists implement during cover shoots when the model (often a celebrity) showed up with unexpected gray strands (many carried brown mascara for just this reason). But it's cool to see a celebrity who could drop serious cash on salon visits show off a stealthy move like this, even though she just slathered a Lexus payment's worth of gunk on her face.

Here's the exact mascara Hayek used, a less-pricey option and a few of the more-affordable beauty products she recommends.