Unkempt Beauty / Live-Action TV

• Jeremy Brett's morning hair is cute in a dorky way in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.
• Angel: Joss Whedon going for the double: Fred is the Unkempt Beauty to Cordelia's well-groomed look. Eventually, Fred discovers civilization and stops being this, though.
• Battlestar Galactica: Kara "Starbuck" Thrace wears no visible makeup, dresses in military-issue clothing, and is frequently seen bloody-faced, sweaty, and tired, with her golden hair either messed up or in a utilitarian, all-business ponytail.
• The Big Bang Theory has Penny as perfectly willing to chill at home in an oversized college football t-shirt and her hair messily pulled up. It's become a recurring joke that she KNOWS how to dress up and knock it out of the park when she wants to, she just chooses not to. This is more evident in later seasons, as the first few seasons had her mostly in fanservice heavy tank tops and short shorts. Although it was averted in an episode with her getting addicted to an MMORPG, as her hair got greasy and frayed and her skin blotchy.
• In the Canal + series Borgia (no, not the Show Time series The Borgias), the characters Lucrezia Borgia, Giulia Farnese, and Sancia Squillace(d'Aragona) are played by German/Russian actress Isolda Dychauk, Italian actress Marta Gastini, and Czech actress Eliska Krenkova respectively. Since the series has actresses in costume with either little or no makeup at all, the actresses for these three characters are naturally quite pretty.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Faith, in a deliberate contrast to Buffy's ever-groomed look.
  • Even people in-universe seem to think Spike is hotter when his hair is messed up and wavy than when it's super gelled and blonde.
• Dr. Patrick Turner, from Call the Midwife. The more rumpled and bed-headed he is, the more the fangirls seem to like him. It really doesn't hurt that Stephen McGann (yes, Paul's brother) carries off the "world-weary and careworn older gent" look like nobody's business.
• Charmed (1998) gave us the cupid Coop trying to get Phoebe to stop sitting around and try to find her true love, though the point was to show how much Coop already liked her.
  Coop: Look at you! You're lounging around in a track suit with a pencil in your hair and glasses and... You're so beautiful.
• Control Z: Sofia rarely seems to comb her hair nor otherwise care about her appearance. Nonetheless, she's very beautiful.
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Deet wears her hair in loose, messy braids and is implied not to bathe much (if ever), but she's still very pretty and charming. Hup and Rian, at least, always think she's beautiful.
• The Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife features Idris, a beautiful woman who is a mess due to having fallen through a hole in space-time. She dies at the beginning of the episode and her body becomes host to the soul of the TARDIS.
• In Firefly, River Tam has long, tangly hair, pale, unhealthy skin, bags under her eyes, and minimal makeup; this does not stop the fandom from adoring her, and several characters in-series remark upon her attractiveness. It helps that she's played by Summer Glau, see below.
  • On the same note, Firefly usually had Jewel Staite in homey overalls and occasionally covered in grease. As Simon says, Kaylee looks good especially covered in engine grease.
• In an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Hilary's boyfriend Trevor comes over, finding her wearing baggy clothes, not wearing makeup, and wearing her hair down. She's horrified that he's seeing her like this, but he's genuinely blown away by how attractive she looks. Then Jazz comes over and tells Hilary she could stand to fix herself up. Fortunately, we are meant to disagree with Jazz.
• Game of Thrones:
  • In Season 5, the normally well-dressed and elaborately coiffed Margaery Tyrell is arrested by the Faith and placed in a dank dark cell and therefore is shown dirty, disheveled, and in rags. It's still Natalie Dormer, though, and she still looks gorgeous!
  • Though Arya Stark spent the last few seasons dressed in filthy clothes and messy hair, she is quite cute.
• In Gilmore Girls Lorelai and Paris have each said that they envy Rory for being able to wake up in the morning and look great.
• In contrast with the other women on Good Girls Revolt, whose hair is usually either done up, curled, or bobbed, Patti wears her long hair down, showing that she's an independent free spirit.
• Oswald Cobblepot from Gotham. Pasty-pale complexion, Sinister Schnoz, hair that usually looks like a bird nested in it, and scraggly yellow teeth... and yet almost Bishōnen in a weird way, with his wide green eyes and oddly winsome smile. It helps that he's small, kind of a Woobie, and has an almost musically soft voice. And of course, beneath the unflattering makeup, Robin Lord Taylor is very pretty in real life. In later seasons, as Penguin becomes more and more powerful, he also cleans himself up... and heck does he clean up nicely.
  • The same can be said of Selina Kyle. While she's a Satisfied Street Rat (or cat) who puts absolutely no effort into her appearance, wears ratty clothes, and doesn't care what anyone thinks of her, she's still quite a lovely girl. Rather sweetly, Bruce is smitten with her no matter what she looks like, and they first met when she was fresh off the streets.
• How I Met Your Mother: Robin qualifies. When trying to convince her not to move in with Ted, Barney asks her how she's going to feel when Ted sees her without makeup. She informs him that she's not wearing makeup right now. His response? "Holy crap, you're beautiful!"
• House: Dr. Gregory House has big bags underneath his eyes, Perma-Stubble, and bed hair. His rugged, unkempt look is actually more attractive than the one and only time we see him clean-shaven and smartly dressed. Too bad his personality flaws take away from it. Or not. Specifically a patient once said that Ashton Kutcher and House have the "same bedroom eyes."
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In Lestat de Lioncourt's eyes, his boyfriend Louis de Pointe du Lac is so gorgeous and irresistible that even when the latter isn't looking his best (such as when he's partly charred by the sun in "...After the Phantoms of Your Former Self", when he's lounging around all day in his pyjamas with Messy Hair in "A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart", and when he's drenched from head to toe in dirty water after swimming the Mississippi River — which is extremely polluted — in "Like Angels Put in Hell by God"), Lestat is still very eager to have sex with him.
• Most will agree that Kate (Evangeline Lily) from Lost looked far, FAR more attractive with scruffy clothes, messy hair, and minimal makeup on the island than she did all done up on the mainland.
  • Claire in Season 6 can be considered as this trope after having lived on the Island for 3 years. Brought up In-Universe by Miles as he says she's "still hot" after seeing her unkempt appearance.
• Shane from The L Word. Her hair was always a mess (this despite her being a hairdresser), she never wore makeup and dressed casually at best. And yet she never lacked for appreciation.
• Morgana and Guinevere play this out as part of their Hourglass Plot in Merlin. Guinevere starts out as very plain and gradually becomes Progressively Prettier, whilst Morgana is a perfectly groomed lady who eventually ends up living in a hovel with dirty hair and dark makeup. Fan reaction varies wildly.
• In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 short "Body Care and Grooming", we are presented with two versions of the same woman—first with her hair messy, her blouse wrinkled, her socks mismatched, etc.—and then cleaned up, prim and proper, Fifties-style. Although the makers of the short clearly mean the "clean" woman to be more attractive, Joel and the bots (Crow especially) prefer the "sloppy" woman, feeling that the clean version is bland-looking and generic while the sloppy woman has an appealing quirkiness about her. Regardless, the message is lost when it's clear that the actress was incredibly attractive either way.
  • The first host segment has the 'bots debating on whether the woman looks better messy (Crow) or clean (Servo). Joel admits they both made good points, but "Crow's right.".
• Claireparker in Pixelface is usually dressed in grungy clothes with messy hair and dirt on her face, as she is the player character in the survival horror game Return to Zombie City. She still holds her own against the aristocratic Alexia and Girly Girl Kiki.
• Summer from Power Rangers RPM. In flashbacks to her old life as a Rich Bitch she looks alright, all dolled up in a party dress and loads of make-up, but many will agree she's much hotter in her biker gear, with her hair loose and a little bit of dirt.
• There were four women on Robin Hood and at least three of them looked much nicer when they were "roughed up" a bit. Marian (Lucy Griffiths) looked gorgeous when her hair was loose and her clothes unkempt, Djaq (Anjali Jay) made her Sweet Polly Oliver a true Bifauxnen and had many straight females questioning their preferences, and Isabella (Lara Pulver) was infinitely more beautiful with her hair wild and her Gorgeous Period Dress all askew. The aversion was Joanna Froggat as Kate, who was given two rather dreadful hairstyles, but who looked her best during the only scene in which she had to tie her hair up off her face, showing off her high cheekbones.
• In Scrubs, Elliot runs to the hospital on her day off to get some advice from Turk without J.D. knowing she was there. Turk comments that she looks different and she remarks offhand she didn't bother putting any make-up on. It is subtle but a theme of the episode was that Character Development doesn't eliminate ALL of your issues, as while Elliot proved to still be neurotic there were previous episodes that had her obsessing over her appearance despite the fact she obviously didn't have to try so hard.
• In Shameless (US), Fiona skips the makeup, hairstyling, and even neglects to wear a bra on occasion: she still attracts at least half a dozen men over two seasons, even one woman. Emmy Rossum has said that she spends five minutes in the make-up trailer, just long enough to rub mascara around her eyes. She still manages to look like this. She Cleans Up Nicely too, but is staggeringly gorgeous in her natural state.
• Misha Collins as the angel Castiel in Supernatural. You'd think an angel with stubble, perpetual bedhead, rumpled tie, and hobo trench coat wouldn't be that attractive, but he is. In fact, some people have turned every aspect of his ruffled appearance into outright fetish fuel.
• Fans of Survivor call this trope "Island Hot". Several girls like Parvarti Shallow, Kelley Wentworth, and guys like Spencer Bledshoe look gorgeous even after enduring everything the competition throws at them. Some fans even say that certain players look better dirty and disheveled than all dressed up for the reunion.

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