Ten Women that became hotter after they turned 40.

About this list

These are women who became hotter after they turned forty, so that leaves out people who retained their beauty like Halle Berry or Demi Moore. It also leaves out people who still look amazing, but not necessarily better than they did when they were younger, like Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker. 

I was thinking about the women for whom age has been a blessing - really taking them out of the every day beauty of youth into some sort of legend status. In the end, there were a surprisingly large amount, and some of the women on this list are still gorgeous in their fifties. 

I did’t include Helen Miren because I think she really found herself after fifty, and I didn’t include women like Judy Dench who I think look better in their eighties than they ever did in their twenties, because that is a matter of opinion. 

The ten women below, are indisputably more beautiful over the age of forty than they were when they were young, proving that there is a certain kind of beauty that can only come from maturity. A beauty of experience, risk, and excitement that the twenty-somethings just can’t hope to match.

I know this isn't a great pic - its hard to find images of her when she was young.

At 40

1. Julianne Moore.

Juliane Moore didn’t come to prominence until 1993 when she was 33 years old and in the Robert Altman film, Uncle Vanya. Nine Months two years later with Hugh Grant was a critical failure, but successful at the box office, and is still today, one of her highest grossing films. But it wasn’t until Boogie Nights, in 1997, when she was 37 years old that her breakthrough was confirmed playing the aging porn actress seeking to be reunited with her son. The next year she was in the Cohen Brothers The Big Lebowski and, on the precipice of turning forty, she had finally become a household name. However, ever since Boogie Nights, she’s been considered a sex goddess, a title that has stuck with her into her 50’s. Julianne Moore was definitely pretty when she was younger, but with her taught frame and her thick luscious hair in tact, but adding a sensual confidence that youth can’t match, she’s sexier now than she ever was.

At 40

2. Gweneth Paltrow

Gwyneth is definitely one of those women who has blossomed with age. She was always pretty, but forgettable.  It wasn’t until she reached 40 that People magazine heralded her as the most beautiful woman. Her thinness looked scrawny when she was younger, and her face lacked the maturity to be convincing. Only with her added years, and her famous immaculate care of her body has she blossomed into the kind of woman we all want to look like.

At 40

3. Polly Jean Harvey

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but on this woman, the lines around the mouth just make her look cooler. How is that possible? P.J.’s beauty has always been an unusual, cool beauty, but she has another of those faces that just gets better with age. There are some women that look a little like you might be breaking the law, or can’t discuss anything meaningful with right up to their thirties. P.J. being so short and thin, was one of those women. Her’s is a face that needed some history, but who would have thought it would look as good as this?

At 40

4. Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek was always beautiful, one of those stunning Latinos, but she had that large square jaw that gave her a bit of a buff look, but with a body like that, who cares right? There was something missing in the symmetry, that made her a poor second to, say Penelope Cruise. Now that she’s older, the jaw line has softened with age, and brought forward all that breathtaking beauty that was always there. Those eyes, that cleavage and that honeyed skin take the fore stage and smiling on any red carpet, she’s never looked better.

At 40

5. Kristin Davies

I’m not sure what she takes, but this woman just doesn’t age. She has one of those faces, a little like Polly Jean above, who always looked just a little TOO young. Now that she’s hit her forties, she’s got the maturity her face needs to be truly beautiful. It's in the eyes and the sensual confidence. There is a personality to her beauty now that was missing when she was younger. 

At 40

6. Christie Brinkley

I don’t care what you say, she traded off her body until she got older. This woman has been the Cover Girl model for twenty-five year, which is the longest running modelling contract in history, her career spanned more than three decades, and she has appeared on over 500 magazine covers. Christie's face was just too chubby when she was younger, but her body was where it was all at. Then, when she hit forty, it all came together in one astonishing package that has made her more famous and more successful than any other model, and the third most rich ever with an estate worth over eighty million dollars. In short, only a woman who got better looking as she got older could achieve this - even staying the same wouldn’t work.

A bit tricky to find really good shots of her in her youth, as she really started work in her 30's.

At 40. She's also at the top of this list.

7. Isabella Rossellini

Speaking of women who defy the laws of the harshest job in the world - modelling - Isabella Rossellini began her career at twenty-eight, the age most models are retiring. She became the Lancome model at the age of thirty and remained there until her mid forties. Rossellini is one of those women who can be beautiful with a normal looking body  - but I guess when you’re Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, anything is possible. She is still posing nude (in her 50’s) in those off-beat Guy Maddin films. (As well as pretending to be a woman with a fake leg filled with beer)

At 40.

8. Kim Cattrall

Possibly the only contentious name on this list, she definitely had a huge fan base when she was in all those cheap teen romp skin flicks, but I still think forty is what took her from trashy tramp to sophisticated sass when she hit Sex and the City. With Kim its not just the look, its the smouldering attitude and that came across as a little slutty when she was young. It was the years that gave her the beauty.

At 40.

9. Jennifer Anniston

I have never really thought JA that appealing - never quite understood it, until I saw her in Horrible Bosses, a film she made when she was forty-two. It was only then that I felt like I got what all the fuss was about. When she was younger, she had the girl-next-door thing going, sure, but she looked so much like an ordinary girl in the street with great hair. Many people may disagree with this choice too, but I don’t see any contest between the old JA and the young. She just hit her stride big time when she gained the decades.

At 40

10. Vanessa Williams

This is a bit of a cheat because she has all that beautiful melanin, but Vanessa Williams was Miss Universe and she is STILL more beautiful when she turned forty, again because her looks are off set against a sophisticated confidence and depth of experience that the youth don’t even know to want. She is rounder too, her body filling out from a scrawny skinny look to a voluptuous goddess thing, and I think she's a bit older than 40 in my image above. This woman just gets more and more beautiful. Go figure.