A sort of inversion: during seventh grade, this troper would generally wear her nearly waist-length honey-blonde hair in a loose, careless/casual/practical ponytail at the back of her neck, or just leave it dangling down her back. Now, people always thought she had very nice hair (to the point that sometimes they would walk up to her and start fingering a lock of it). But on the three or four occasions when her girlfriends got ahold of her, they'd put it up in a ponytail near the top of her head, pulling it all away from her face and neck. And apparently it looked really pretty, judging by what they told her (and in that case they were not lying). So in this case it was a weird combo of BeautifulAllAlong and an inversion of this trope.

This troper has a bit more than waist-length hair. It is rather light and so gets tangled easily , so she usually wears it in a braid. Many of her friends invoke this trope on her if they feel like that.

Are you my friend? I know someone who fits that description perfectly. And yes, we do invoke this trope on her.

This troper used this trope to great effect when her high school put on Lil Abner for its annual musical. She was playing the antagonistic head scientist, which was a male role normally, but she got the part because there were precious few boys who actually tried out for the play. The result was a character who came off as an uptight, plain, old maid Oxford graduate who did her hair up in a severe bun. At her last scene, the scientist announced that the town would not be destroyed (long story)...and this troper ad libbed, pulling her scrunchy out to let her nice blonde hair fall to her shoulders. Cue cheering from the audience and a spontaneous glomp from a fellow cast member who hadn't been in the know.

From what this troper remembers, her hair was ALWAYS tied back mostly because of primary school. Girls weren't allowed to let their hair down because of lice/nits. At least two/three years into high school (2009) she let it down and rarely has a ponytail. My hair was medium brown, long and curly/frizzy. Now it's straight, medium length and darker (due to never going outside, yep blame the computer). Much easier to take care of now.