How an Olympic Artistic Swimmer Gets Ready: Hair and Makeup

Many people probably never considered how Olympic athletes get ready to compete — that is, until coming across Daniella Ramirez’s viral video on TikTok. The Team USA swimmer has been giving her followers a behind-the-scenes look at how she gets ready for a competition, and people were particularly blown away by her hair routine. As an Olympic artistic swimmer, her uniform extends past just her swimsuit to her hair and even her makeup. All athletes in her sport need to ensure their hair stays in place while they glide and flip underwater, and the secret to that is a special gelatin-based product (yes, like the kind in food).

In ASMR-esque videos that have garnered hundreds of millions of views and counting, Ramirez taps on her hair with various brushes to convey just how rock-hard the style needs to be before beginning to take it out. Since first going viral back in March 2023, she’s posted a variety of related clips, displaying exactly what it takes to get ready (and unready) for her sport.

Ahead, Ramirez walks us through her entire hair and makeup routine for competing, including the products she uses and how she gets unready at the end of the day.