Even should you’re not a rugby fan, you in all probability know the identify Ilona Maher: The middle for USA’s Ladies’s Eagles Sevens has racked up over a million followers on TikTok, the place she does all the pieces from sharing inside appears to be like into professional sports activities (who can neglect her poking enjoyable on the notorious “anti-sex” beds in Tokyo’s Olympic Village?) to placing feminine magnificence requirements on blast. (Living proof: posting a photograph of her personal cellulite to show “all of us have it.”) And should you hadn’t heard of her earlier than, chances are you’ll effectively quickly: She’s set to symbolize the US as soon as once more on the largest athletic stage on the earth.

Three years after she made her Workforce USA debut on the Summer time Olympics in Tokyo, Maher is getting ready for one more spherical of Video games. When she spoke to SELF in late Could, she and her teammates had been enjoying their final match of the season—in sunny Madrid—earlier than they’d head dwelling to kick their Olympics coaching into excessive gear. Lower than a month later, on June 17, the official girls’s rugby sevens roster was introduced—and Maher was on it. Quickly, the workforce will fly to France to spend per week at a pre-Olympic coaching camp in Excursions, a metropolis a number of hours’ drive from Paris. “This helps you acclimate to the time distinction, the climate,” Maher says. Then, it’ll be on to the Metropolis of Mild to rub shoulders with the remainder of the world’s prime rugby athletes.

With the Paris Olympics looming—the opening ceremony is on July 26—Maher says she’s each excited and a bit nervous. However she’s made peace along with her butterflies. “I feel it’s okay to be a bit nervous. It means you care,” she says.

One factor that helps her really feel comfortable going into big competitions like this? A well-packed bag of must-haves that she will be able to depend on to supply consolation regardless of the place she goes.

“Although you’re going to play rugby and it’s going to be powerful, you need these little issues that offer you that escape or nonetheless [make you] really feel like your self,” Maher says. That’s why her private listing of necessities contains a number of pores and skin and sweetness merchandise—she’s beforehand referred to as lipstick her “struggle paint.” In any case, she says, athletes are extra than simply their exercise. “They wish to care for their pores and skin, really feel stunning, and be ok with themselves,” Maher says. “And that’s one thing that’s actually essential to me as a result of being an athlete is such a small a part of who you’re.”

Right here’s what can be in Ilona Maher’s Self-Care Survival Equipment.

1. Some critical pores and skin safety.

We play in so many various climates, and we have to defend our pores and skin, wherever it’s. We go from locations the place the UV index could be two to others the place it’s a lot greater: We’ve performed in Sydney, the place it was a 12 or no matter it will get as much as. For sunscreen, I take advantage of Solar Bum or one thing else with a extremely excessive SPF, like 50. We’re coaching, we’re sweating, so we would like one thing that stays on.