Welcome to Shelf Life, the place Olympians are breaking down the sweetness routines carrying them via the 2024 Paris Video games. At the moment, Staff USA rugby middle Ilona Maher reveals the key to indestructible braids (it’s not simply hair gel), the deodorant that retains her contemporary for hours on finish of high-impact train, and the explanation she’s at all times carrying lipstick on the pitch.
Even on a rugby pitch full of girls, it’s simple to identify Ilona Maher. Her face, immediately recognizable from TikTok (the place she has greater than a million followers), is commonly accentuated with poppy crimson or ruddy terra cotta lips framing vibrant white flashes of her mouth guard—a necessity when your job includes head-on collisions and preserving possession of a ball at any value.
Maher would slightly subvert stereotypes of feminine rugby gamers than give into them. She wears make-up on the sphere identical to she would wherever else, she says, and competing within the Paris 2024 Olympics isn’t any exception.
Very like the final time Maher joined Staff USA rugby on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, she plans to spend her downtime in Paris documenting the goings-on within the Olympic Village to her large social media following—and never only for enjoyable. “It isn’t only for me… It is for me, in fact, but in addition for my sport,” Maher says. “Olympics are the place sports activities get seen and folks get made, and I need folks to tune into rugby and have their daughters be like, ‘Hey dad, I need to strive that. Mother, that appears actually cool.’”
And given Maher’s on the spot likeability on and off the pitch, it’s simple to tune in. Throughout our chat, Maher broke down the sweetness routine she makes use of head to toe throughout and after rugby tournaments, together with her signature lipstick, the deodorant that retains her feeling contemporary, and the explanation she really prefers to have actually, actually actually soiled hair typically.
Hair
The dirtier [my hair], the higher at instances. Loads of us do not wash our hair all through the entire event schedule as a result of [we play] six video games over three days. Earlier than video games we prefer to get our hair braided as a result of it will be in scrums [where players pack closely together with their heads down], we’re tackling, so it will get tousled. I get it braided with lots of gel simply so it could stand up to rugby. You need your hair to remain in no matter type it is in.
