Basketball Star Rae Burrell Swears By This Internet Skin Care Trend

Caroline Tien
·8 min read

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In SELF’s Sleeping With… series, we ask people from different career paths, backgrounds, and stages of life how they make sleep magic happen.

Fresh off a breakout season with the Los Angeles Sparks, WNBA guard-forward Rae Burrell has even more excitement in front of her: She’s helping launch Unrivaled, a new player-owned, three-on-three women’s basketball league bringing together some of the biggest names in hoops—and paying them the highest average salaries in women’s sports history.

When Burrell’s agent approached her with the Unrivaled proposal the night before the Sparks’s final game in Minnesota last fall, “it was really exciting news for me,” Burrell, 24, who was named to Unrivaled’s Vinyl team, tells SELF. “Getting to know other players that I haven’t really been around in the WNBA has been really fun.”

To prep for Unrivaled—which will pilot a brand-new style of three-on-three on a shorter full court—Burrell has been working with Vinyl coach Teresa Weatherspoon (a.k.a. “T-Spoon”) to sharpen her skills and adapt her style to a compressed format. So far, she’s enjoying herself. “There’s more opportunities to play in the space and show what you bring to the game,” she says. Besides, she says, it comes with an enhanced sense of “togetherness”: “Since there’s only six of us [per team], there’s not as many people to lean on, so that just makes our bonds even stronger with the few people that we do have.”

When it comes to workouts, Burrell has been lifting four days a week to maintain her muscle, emphasizing big compound exercises like squats, bench presses, bird dog rows, and pulldowns, and has also penciled in a bunch of speed drills to improve her acceleration. And naturally, she’s been needing plenty of sleep to complement all that hard work. “Sometimes your body just wants to stay up, but I try to make sure that I’m in bed and ready to go to sleep by at least 12 a.m.,” she says. Read on to find out how else the WNBA star and Unrivaled launcher winds down for bed after a long day of training—from her go-to relaxation techniques to her multistep skin care regimen.

Leading up to bed, I make sure to get in a good dinner.

I try to keep dinner around 6 p.m.-ish, 7 p.m., because I don’t want to eat too close to bed. Usually, my dinner depends on if the next day is a game day or practice day, but either way, I try to make sure I get in protein, carbs, and vegetables somehow.

If it’s a game day, I’ll get some pasta or some chicken in to give me some energy. If I’m doing pasta, I really like to keep it simple and do some spaghetti and meatballs—I mean, that’s just a classic. And then for the chicken dish, I usually just do barbecue chicken or grilled chicken and then have sweet potatoes on the side.

My favorite vegetable of all time is brussels sprouts. I get them a lot at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, so I think that's actually what piqued my interest with them—I wanted to recreate that dish. So I kind of just looked up some simple recipes on TikTok. When I was in Belgium over this past season, it was one of the things that I grabbed when I was in the grocery store. I like to bake ’em, put ’em in the oven, and have that all together. And I’ll make them a little bit sweeter with some honey, season them up a lot to give them some good flavor.

Then I’ll hang out and relax a little bit.

Sometimes I FaceTime my friends because I’m usually in a different place than them. I also have an Xbox, so sometimes I’ll play some 2K, or maybe just watch some Netflix. I know it’s an old one, but I really like the show Prison Break. I’m only on season two, but I want to keep watching. Some other favorites of all time: Money Heist and the live-action The Last Airbender. I like the reality TV shows too.

My skin care routine is next.

My skin doesn’t look great right now—just because of the travel and the transition from Vegas, which is super dry, to Miami, where it’s more humid—so it’s trying to adjust. Before I head to bed, I need to feel like my face is cleansed and any sort of residual is off. I start with the CeraVe Makeup Removing Cleanser Balm for my two-step cleansing routine, and the Fenty Skin Total Cleans’r. Then I go in with the Youth to the People Superberry Hydrate + Glow Dream Oil.

Makeup Removing Cleanser Balm

$11.00, Amazon

Total Cleans'r Remove-It-All Cleanser with Barbados Cherry

$30.00, Fenty Beauty

Superberry Hydrate + Glow Dream Oil

$49.00, Amazon

And this might be kind of weird, but I’ve been using beef tallow as a moisturizer. Just 100% grass-fed beef tallow—literally, the cooking stuff. I found it on TikTok and just ordered it off of Amazon. I’ve only been using it for about a week and a half, so not long at all, but honestly, I’ve gotten some comments that my skin looks more glowy and youthful, so I feel like it’s helped a little bit. I’m going to keep using it.

Sometimes I like to use the gua sha tool and give myself a little face massage. I’ve been doing that for a couple months now. I really like it because I feel like it’s evened my face out a little bit and makes my skin more taut. And Unrivaled has recently gifted us some stuff, so I’m excited to use that too, like the TheraFace Depuffing Wand.

TheraFace Depuffing Wand

$149.00, Therabody

Then, I’ll massage my head for about five minutes with a little handheld scalp massager and put my strengthening oils in my hair—I have a spray bottle to get my hair wet. I use the Ouai Scalp Serum. I’ve also been using the Camille Rose Rosemary Oil Strengthening Hair + Scalp Drops and a Camille Rose leave-in conditioner. And then I go in with some kind of gel that’ll help seal it in, and throw my hair up in the bonnet.

Scalp Serum

$52.00, Amazon

Rosemary Oil Strengthening Hair + Scalp Drops

$13.00, Amazon

And I don’t forget about recovery either.

Depending on if I”m feeling sore, I’ll roll my legs out or stretch a little bit. I also have boots that apply compression to my legs, so I’ll do that for about 20 minutes. Sometimes I put some ice in the boots if I have specific areas that I need to hit.

I keep my bedroom cold but cozy.

Silk sheets are my favorite type of bedding because they’re good for the hair. When I sleep, my hair is in a bonnet, but sometimes if I forget to put it on or it falls off, the silk does feel good. Plus, it’s just super soft and cozy. And then I usually like to have one of those really fluffy blankets, like the sherpa or fleece. That, mixed with the silk sheets—yeah. That’s the best.

I also like to make sure the room is cold when I sleep—that’s the most comfortable for me. I usually do 67 or 68 degrees. Those people who crank their heat way up at bedtime—ugh. Can’t do it. Especially with the silk sheets, you’ll get sweating.

And then, on my Apple TV, I navigate to the Calm meditation app and I put on the fireplace soundscape because I really like the crackling sound. I don’t know if it’s a placebo effect or what, but because I keep my room so cold, the fire crackling makes me feel like I’m sitting by a fire, warms me up a little. I think the sound is just really calming.

I’ll watch some type of advice or affirmations YouTube video to get me in a good mindset.

I have a specific channel that I watch, Nero Knowledge. As athletes, we exert so much energy in not only our bodies, but our minds too. You could have a bad practice where you’re missing shots and you’re frustrated, or you have a really good one where the dopamine is super high. Everything’s really intense throughout our days. So I like to have that time to de-stress and get back to ground before I go to bed.

I actually love journaling too. When I was home, I went to the park every day to journal and stuff. However I’m feeling that day, whatever is coming to mind, I just write it down on paper. I like to stay off my phone for the time that I’m doing that and just enjoy being present in that moment. It’s just another way to decompress, maybe get some feelings out. And, also, to appreciate and have gratitude for life. Sometimes you get so caught up in what’s going on you forget to slow down and actually be grateful for everything that you do have.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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