Ilona Maher’s $10 Lipstick Does not Budge, Even In Head-On Rugby Collisions — Interview

Welcome to Shelf Life, the place Olympians are breaking down the wonder routines carrying them by means of the 2024 Paris Video games. At present, Staff USA rugby middle Ilona Maher reveals the key to indestructible braids (it’s not simply hair gel), the deodorant that retains her recent for hours on finish of high-impact train, and the rationale 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 1,000,000 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 maintaining possession of the ball at any value.

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 anyplace else, she says, and competing within the Paris 2024 Olympics isn’t any exception.

Very similar to 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 huge social media following—and never only for enjoyable. “It is not only for me… It is for me, in fact, but additionally for my sport,” Maher says. “Olympics are the place sports activities get seen and other people get made, and I need folks to tune in to rugby and have their daughters be like, ‘Hey dad, I need to attempt that. Mother, that appears actually cool.’”

And given Maher’s prompt likeability on and off the pitch, it’s simple to tune in. Throughout our chat, Maher broke down the wonder routine she makes use of head to toe throughout and after rugby tournaments, together with her signature lipstick, the deodorant that retains her feeling recent, and the rationale she truly 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 may be in scrums [where players pack closely together with their heads down], we’re tackling, so it may get tousled. I get it braided with a whole lot of gel simply so it could actually stand up to rugby. You need your hair to remain in no matter model it is in.