Welcome to Shelf Life, the place Olympians are breaking down the sweetness routines carrying them via the 2024 Paris Video games. At this time, Workforce USA rugby heart 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 ladies, 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 vivid white flashes of her mouth guard—a necessity when your job includes head-on collisions and retaining possession of the ball at any price.
Maher would reasonably subvert stereotypes of feminine rugby gamers than give in to them. She wears make-up on the sector identical to she would wherever else, she says, and competing within the Paris 2024 Olympics is not any exception.
Very like the final time Maher joined Workforce 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 huge social media following—and never only for enjoyable. “It isn’t only for me… It is for me, after all, but in addition for my sport,” Maher says. “Olympics are the place sports activities get seen and folks get made, and I need individuals to tune in to rugby and have their daughters be like, ‘Hey dad, I wish 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 generally.
Hair
“The dirtier [my hair], the higher at instances. Plenty of us do not wash our hair all through the entire match 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’ll be in scrums [where players pack closely together with their heads down], we’re tackling, so it’ll get tousled. I get it braided with lots of gel simply so it may stand up to rugby. You need your hair to remain in no matter type it is in.
