She Cleans Up Nicely / Fan Works

• Implied but not fully stated in All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird. Mahanon is extremely amused to watch his co-Inquisitor Victoria being fitted for a dress while also discussing tactics for an upcoming invasion. He makes no observations about her cleaning up nicely, but he does notice that her love interest - with whom she's discussing the invasion - is quite distracted.
• In The Awakening of a Magus, Snape draws his share of female gazes once he manages to get the grease out of his hair.
• Cat-Ra features an unwilling version. At the end of Coronation, Castaspella and Shadow Weaver decide that Catra (who has a habit of avoiding bathing and not bothering to take care of her clothing) needs a bath and a change of clothes. When Catra learns this, she tries to run away in a panic before being subdued by Shadow Weaver, and dragged by her and Castaspella to the bathroom. Catra continues to resist, until Castaspella and Shadow Weaver convince her to go along with it so that others will think better of the company Glimmer keeps. When Catra next appears, she has undergone a Significant Wardrobe Shift, which everyone agrees makes her look better than before, with Perfuma in particular cooing about how beautiful Catra now looks.
• The Child of Love: In chapter 5 Asuka wears a kimono to go to the Obon festival. Shinji notices several times that she seems real cute in that dress.
• In Child of the Storm, this happens with Hermione (as in canon), Carol, and Diana at the Yule Ball, all of whom clean up nicely to various degrees - Diana is already noted to be very pretty, bordering on truly beautiful, while Carol was already an Unkempt Beauty (though while Harry's already smitten, the effect of dress, make-up, and up-do is such that he has to make a conscious effort to actually use words). Hermione, by contrast, is vaguely noted as having become more classically pretty over time, but not much, since Harry (the usual POV character when she's involved) rarely registers that she's even female. As such, his astonishment isn't so much related to her attractiveness, as her startling resemblance to her mother, Wanda Maximoff. While he already knew that they were related, having worked it out, aside from the eyes she's described as being more or less Wanda in miniature.
• In Children of Time, Sherlock Holmes stares speechlessly at Beth Lestrade (whom he's only ever seen in modern or street boy clothing) when she shows up in a dress. Cue further awe at two more elegant dresses later...
• Gender-flipped in Cinderjuice, although some potent magic is involved. Of course, it is a Cinderella spoof.
• A Crown of Stars: Female and male example. Hikari usually wears plain, ordinary clothes and her hair is braided in Girlish Pigtails; her boyfriend Touji also dresses very plainly. In chapter 40 both dress for a party and Toji looks good, whereas Hikari looks stunning.
  The Eva Pilots’ former classmates joined the group. Asuka blinked in surprise. Suzuhara was wearing a dark green Imperial Army cadet’s uniform just like Shinji, but had just a single row of three ribbons on his. ‘A Purple Heart, 2015 Angel War Campaign ribbon, and the Eva Pilot’s Badge. Well, I guess he gets all three from his one technical mission,’ Asuka noted. But it was her friend Hikari who was the stunner. Her habitual pig-tails and student uniform look was gone, replaced with an elegant black cheongsam with a dragon coiled around her body picked out in silver embroidery, and her hair was now styled into a slightly longer than shoulder length cut with a fringe above her eyes, set off by thin lighter brown highlights throughout. “Wow, Hikari. You look good. And Suzuhara almost looks like a civilized person worthy of hanging out with you, instead of an overgrown monkey in a track suit.”
• Doing It Right This Time:
  • The trio of time-travelers found Hikari right when she was about to go out with Touji. She had gotten ready on their date, and the kids were shocked at how pretty she looked.
    It took Shinji a moment to realise who he was looking at. She was wearing her hair loose in ringlets instead of her usual pigtails, along with artfully applied makeup that made her look a few years older. It was also the first time he'd seen Hikari out of her school uniform, and the rather adventurously-cut sundress and court heels were not the kind of thing he'd imagined the famously strait-laced Class Representative wearing at weekends.
  • And shortly later Rei got a makeover. The results were stunning:
    Asuka couldn't quite hold back a gasp. The dress was a deep blue that set off Rei's eyes and complexion wonderfully, and while it was technically quite modest -it only showed about as much actual skin as her school uniform- it followed and flattered the curves of her body almost as closely as a swimsuit. A pair of strappy sandals with four-inch heels completed the ensemble, doing wonderful things to the shape of her calves and...
• In Discworld work Gap Year Adventures, two girls who have spent over a year travelling across the Discworld's "Middle East" and "Africa" by foot arrive at their destination, a city not unlike Cape Town on our world, and are required to seriously dress up for a formal reception. The more casual and tomboyish of the two is appraised by her conventionally attractive best friend, who approvingly says "I wouldn't have believed it, but you scrub up nicely, Mariella!"
• Evangelion 303: Rei is considered plainly cute. Then she starts experimenting and she seems stunning.
• Freedom For The Hellhound: When Loona first meets Caleb, he seems to be a stereotypical nerd, wearing Nerd Glasses, an Einstein T-Shirt that says "Science Rules" and some really flat hair. When Loona sees him at the beach however, he's traded his glasses for contacts, combed his hair into a pompadour and is surprisingly well-built, something that blindsides her completely.
• Guys Being Dudes: After first appearing having worn the same hoodie for several weeks and using body spray instead of showering, Arlo does laundry, cleans himself up, and appears for his first date with Spark in a suit, prompting this reaction from the Team Instinct leader.
• Played straight in the Grojband fanfic Cinderella Rock Girl, a Cinderella-esque parody. Laney fills in the role of the titular character, so Trina, acting as the Fairy Godmother, turns a white bedsheet into a beautiful diamond gown, completing the outfit with diamond eyeshadow, a white hair bow, and glass slippers. Nonetheless, she looks absolutely stunning. One person's fanart takes the described beauty further.
• Glitched Miko AU: Miko is forced to get ready for her date by her sister, and while her outfit and the makeup she was made to wear where all that extreme, the effect still causes Hector to be momentarily stunned.
• HERZ: Asuka looks downright striking in her wedding gown:
  Asuka, despite the eyepatch and arm harness, looked stunning in form-fitting beaded bodice with a chain belt across her waist.
• In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Gadget is seen wearing coveralls most of the time, her idea of dressing up seems to be replacing her goggles with a flower in her hair, and she only ever wears dresses as disguises. The more spectacular it is when she wears a dress sincerely. This happens twice in The Midnightverse: In the dream that is Too Huge To Be True, Rebecca Cunningham gets Gadget a ballgown that's basically identical to hers to wear at the Trader's Ball. At the end of the story, Gadget commissions this very dress to be made, and in Last Date, she wears it for the first time in real life, much to Chip's amazement.
• Another Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers fic which has Gadget both notably and sincerely wear a dress is the Graphic Novel Of Mice and Mayhem. In this story, Gadget wears an all-new hairstyle, a dress and her late father's aviator jacket when she comes to pick Chip up from the White House. Last time we saw her, she was bald-headed and not wearing more than a black turtleneck.
• Once More with Feeling: In episode 15 Asuka, Rei and Hikari got ready to attend she school dance. When they arrived at the place the dance was held, everyone -including their dates- stared at them open-mouthed. Hikari especially drew many stares of people could not believe how beautiful the usually plain-looking class representative looked.
• Jackie Jakobs in Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, provides an In-Universe example of this trope. She was pulled off the streets by Mad Moxxi, earning room and board by slinging drinks in one of Moxxi's many bars. Naturally, this required cleaning Jackie up from her previous appearance.
• Rip Van Winkle in Zero's Bullet is often described as plain if not outright mannish. Then she's forced to wear a dress while her suit is being repaired and Guiche falls head over heels for her, describing Rip as "the most beautiful woman he's ever seen". This stays in effect later as her suit becomes too damaged to salvage and Louise buys her some more flattering clothing (though Rip draws the line at dresses).
• Service with a Smile: Russel Thrush is a downplayed example. In his street clothes, he looks like a delinquent, but in his work uniform of slacks and dress shirt, even his mohawk merely makes him look "adorably wild" rather than thuggish.
• In the seventh chapter of the Luca fanfic The Story of Apollo, Daphne and Luca: An Italian Tragedy, Vincenzo can't help but be completely enchanted once he sees the tomboyish and usually unkempt Giulia wearing a lovely bright yellow dress.
• In You Call That a Costume?, as a result of a Humiliating Wager, Applejack is forced to dress as an aristocratic girl for Halloween. Sunset is surprised at how pretty Applejack looks as a result.
• White Sheep (RWBY): Jaune normally wears baggy hoodies and ripped jeans which hide a rather impressive physique. Yang is surprised the first time she sees him in a suit, and absolutely gobsmacked when she sees him in his "prince of the Grimm" costume, which includes lots of black silks, embossed leather, and a maroon cape, all perfectly tailored for him.
  Yin: Dad!
  Yang: Shit, I'd call him daddy.
  Yin: Huh? I don't understand.
  Yang: I-I'll explain when you're older.
• In Flag Flying High, Lan Sizhui first meets Harry when the outlander is a shabbily-dressed servant with short hair (an indicator of criminality in Ancient China). Then he's brought to Cloud Recesses, gets to bath and use a Rapid Hair Growth potion along clean garments, and the result is a stunningly delicate youth who's promptly admired by more than a few people, Lan Sizhui foremost.
• Played very literally in Harry's New Home. An incidental change in shampoo has Snape arrive at breakfast with clean, non-greasy hair for the first time in decades, and everyone - faculty and student body - are stunned (very literally) by his sudden good looks. He himself is very unprepared for the response, since having dozens of females (and quite a few males, too) look at him with, ahem, interest is a wholly new experience.
• Naru-Hina Chronicles Mini-sodes: Naruko cleans up very nicely into a proper young lady. Subverted, though: One of Slutty-Sage's favorite roleplays was the Dirty Noble Lady, which required you to start off an angel before being a demon in bed.
• Inverted by We Make Our Own Light — both Dunstan and Yorshka think Gwyndolin's divine regalia when he acts as the Dark Sun doesn't fit him at all, comparing his golden jewelry to shackles and lamenting the crown hides his eyes and make him appear an unfeeling, malevolent golem. When he starts wearing practical leggings and tunics and stop hiding his face, they enjoy his new appearance much more.

---