Jordan Chiles Shares the Emotional Meanings Behind Her 20+ Tattoos

Beth Sobol
·6 min read

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Since arriving home from the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris, Jordan Chiles has been taking it day by day, grateful for the outpouring of public support and for her USA Women’s Gymnastics teammates—Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera—who have rallied around her. “They’ve really had my back,” Chiles tells Allure during an interview to talk about her new partnership with Vaseline (and specifically the launch of ProVita B3 Serum-Burst Lotion). “Just knowing no matter where we are or what we’re doing, we have that love and support for each other; that’s a really big thing.”

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Chiles is home in Texas, taking classes online while preparing to return to UCLA in December to rejoin the Bruins gymnastics team and compete in the 2025 NCAA season. After being the focus of an international post-Games controversy (a topic which couldn’t be discussed during this interview), she’d like the next few months to be more low-key. “I think no matter where I am or what I do, I’m going to be in the spotlight, which I’m very thankful for, but I am waiting to sit in the background for a sec. It’s been a whirlwind.”

Her training schedule is less intense at the moment, but she’s maintaining another important routine: self-care, which usually starts with an evening shower. “If I take [one] at night, I’ll really give my whole body [some] R&R … especially after a competition,” Chiles says. “I’ll do a body scrub and then, because my skin is very sensitive, I’ll wash my face with something gentle and light. I’ll moisturize my face, I’ll use Bliss vitamin C serum.” And then there’s Cécred, the hair care line from Beyoncé, who sent her a personal good luck note before the Olympics, calling Chiles her “twin.”

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“Cécred is chef’s kiss,” says Chiles. “I love the shampoo, the conditioner, the oil, all of it. And everything she’s done for me, all the support, I appreciate everything.”

Chiles’ regimen also includes tattoo upkeep. She’s lost count of the exact number (“over 20” is her best estimate) but can recite the meaning behind each. “I have them on my left arm, I have one on my spine, two on my back, some on my hands,” she says. “I have tattoos everywhere.”

“I don’t get them just to get them,” she continues. “Like, one is a quote from my grandpa. It says, ‘Where you are, I have been, where I am, you will be.’ He used to tell us that all the time and he passed away, so that’s very sentimental to me.”

After the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, where Team USA took home a silver medal, Chiles got a set of Olympic rings on her right arm, matching the one Biles got following her 2016 Olympic debut in Rio. Close friends and teammates, Chiles and Biles, as the pair is known, also got matching tattoos of the word “Golden” in 2021 in honor of their national Gold Over America tour. “Our motto was ‘Everyone is golden. They shine bright.’ That’s what we were giving to the audience.”

Ink maintenance requires daily skin care all over her body. In addition to a trusty jar of coconut oil, Chiles uses Vaseline’s new ProVita B3 Serum-Burst Lotion in Luminous Glow, which, among other hydrating ingredients, contains niacinamide and antioxidants. “It's a great tattoo enhancer,” says Chiles. “As tattoos get older, they tend to fade a little. This keeps my skin soft and really makes them pop.” Before and after practice she’ll also use the line's new Supple & Soft formula to offset dryness. “Especially when I’m done, I’ll put it all over my body so I don’t feel too gritty. My problem areas are my wrists and my knees. I’ll take the chalk off and put the lotion on.”

As a young gymnast, Chiles was discouraged from applying her own lotion–her mother lathered her up instead–to prevent soft hands that might weaken her grip on the uneven bars. Around age 12, Chiles insisted on doing it herself. “As I got older, I was like, wait a minute, I think this is kind of a myth,” she laughs. “What does it matter if my hands are soft if I’m doing perfectly fine? The only thing we have to watch out for is that we’re not greasy so we don’t slip. But the Vaseline [product] is great because it absorbs quickly.”

At the Olympics, Chiles went all in with her glam, with looks that included subtle touches like carefully placed rhinestones under each brow or electric white eyeshadow. Off the mat, she keeps her makeup much simpler. “Day to day, I typically use Fenty’s concealer and foundation. My eyebrows are microbladed so I usually just gel them with something like Anastasia [Beverly Hills] brow gel,” Chiles says. “I use a lot of Milani, whether it’s the blush, the highlighter, or the bronzer. And I’m a lip girlie; Haus Labs has a lip pencil I like.”

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She does splash out on her nails. During our chat, she holds up a long, blinged-out, textured set of tips, which she sports even when competing, having said they actually improve her performance since they’re “too precious and too good looking to be breaking.” Her technician, Dior Mulano (@clawzbydior), is based in Los Angeles, but Chiles will fly her to Texas or to big events she’s attending like New York Fashion Week. She admits it's her biggest indulgence.

She’s earned it. As the dust from her post-Olympics experience settles, she refuses to let it crush her spirit. Revisiting the TikToks from the team and her followers makes her smile. “I do look back at a lot of them and go, ‘Oh wow, we were actually in Paris and we did that.’ We did all these amazing things as athletes, but also as friends as well. It’s cool to be scrolling and remember what time it was and where it was and what we were doing. The fan ones are pretty cool, too.” She loved the viral “Sad to say I didn’t make the Olympics” trend, in which users mocked themselves with clips of their own sports-related clumsy trips, falls, and slips. “Those brought us so much joy and really lightened things up while we were there,” she says.

Right now, it’s one foot in front of the other, but Chiles says the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles are on the table. “It’s not out of my mind. It’s still there. But I’m taking in this moment as best as I can.”

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Originally Appeared on Allure

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