They are one of the most popular teams at the Olympics. Their hand-eye coordination is off the charts. Their uniforms? Head-to-toe black and très chic.

They are the hairstylists of the Summer Games, at the service of any Olympian in the athletes’ village in need of grooming and on a mission to substantiate that old sports mantra: look good, feel good, play good.

“I’m not going out there looking scrappy,” Aphiwe Dimba, 23, a goalkeeper for South Africa’s field hockey team, said as she settled into a stylists’ chair last week. “It gives me more confidence after I get a cut. You never know who is taking your picture.”

If the Olympic Village cafeteria is a space for spontaneous social interaction, its serene salon in the main plaza is a refuge of self-care: kicking back, primping and optimizing one’s aura before it’s time to compete.

The hair salon, a fixture at every Olympics, has been open this summer from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day. On one recent morning, a race walker from Britain was having his hair trimmed, a boxer from Uzbekistan was getting her long blond hair braided and a BMX racer from Colombia was having her nails painted in the colors of her national flag.