Olympian Ilona Maher on Her Fave Bikinis, Magnificence Necessities

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Ilona Maher isn’t content material with simply being an Olympic athlete. The rugby star has emerged as greater than a triple menace: a body-positive TikTok sensation with 3.6 million followers, a model ambassador for the likes of Secret deodorant and L’Oréal Paris and the newly minted Greatest Breakthrough Athlete on the 2025 ESPY Awards.

The 28-year-old rugby star has additionally partnered with TJ Maxx, her first main retail sponsorship, to award sponsorships to 10 ladies alongside hairstylist Jen Atkin, designer Carly Cushnie, piano prodigy Chloe Flower and Broadway’s Renée Elise Goldsberry. You Sponsored by TJ Maxx supplies alternatives by means of funding, instruments, information, connection and visibility for individuals who need to do all of it, like Maher. 

“I’m actually honored they selected me as someone who makes my model authenticity,” Maher tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It’ll be good to attach with a few of those that’ve been chosen and possibly give a little bit little bit of perception for them, however they’ll educate me issues as properly.” 

Maher admits she doesn’t know the whole lot there may be to learn about beginning a enterprise. The reality is, she’s created one by being herself. The athlete helped a distinct segment sport like rugby develop into a sensation, after her 2020 Tokyo Olympics movies went viral on TikTok and when she helped Workforce USA win bronze — the US’ first medal within the sport — on the 2024 Paris video games.

“To be the face of it worldwide has been so cool, but additionally I hope to see extra,” she says. “I hope to see extra of us getting on the market. I need extra superstars. The influencer factor is cool. I feel that to me, primary, I’m an athlete, I’m an Olympian, that’s who I’m.”

Maher didn’t got down to develop into an influencer. She simply wished to “dwell comfortably enjoying rugby” — and meaning she wanted sponsorships. “[For] TJ Maxx to see that in me and to need to sponsor me has been so superior as a result of I’m a feminine athlete in a sport that’s actually up and coming,” she says. “So I noticed it as a chance and it’s fascinating when folks prefer to name me an influencer/content material creator as a result of I’m like, yeah, I’m. However I’m an Olympic medalist. Nevertheless it’s modified my life in some ways.”

One of the crucial significant — and empowering — shifts in Maher’s life has been utilizing her platform to achieve hundreds of thousands of girls navigating a social media panorama saturated with #SkinnyTok and content material glorifying weight reduction. She’s gone viral for difficult poisonous magnificence requirements and calling out outdated metrics like BMI. Whereas on-line trolls debate whether or not she’s “obese,” Maher is busy touchdown a canopy of Sports activities Illustrated: Swimsuit Version and strutting down the runway in a bikini on the journal’s Swimsuit Present.

She’s snug displaying her energy in a bikini. “This summer season, I’m sporting the tiniest bikinis,” she says. She’s an enormous fan of Monday Swimwear and Australian model Budgy Smuggler, along with those that “come free within the mail.” 

When she’s not hanging in bikinis, she’s touring. In her carry-on, Maher all the time has a bullet journal to “write down my little ideas” and her Kindle stuffed with romance books, “so nobody is aware of the loopy issues I’m studying on the airport,” she says.

The budding creator additionally carries across the viral clip-on Amazon mild and an Octobuddy for straightforward content material on the go. “You simply need to put up it,” she says of discovering time to make so many movies.

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Though she’s develop into identified for her daring lips, Maher’s often not sporting make-up in her movies and primarily focuses on skincare. She loves Paula’s Selection moisturizer: “I prefer to preserve it fairly easy to maintain the pores and skin contemporary,” she says. When she does get glam, she focuses on grooming her brows, making use of a little bit mascara and ending with Maybelline Tremendous Keep Matte Ink lipstick, which has develop into a signature search for her. “For video games, I put on Self Starter, which is type of a coral-y one,” she says. When she desires a bolder look, she goes for a “basic crimson” known as Pioneer.

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One factor she’s not? A wellness woman, no less than not within the TikTok “clear woman” method. “I like a smoothie right here and there,” she says. “I feel wellness doesn’t need to be strict. It isn’t the identical [for everyone.]  I neglect to take my dietary supplements more often than not and I really like soiled martinis.”