Especially in the early episodes, Elly was a total tomboy to the point she hated being called a "girl". I always found it hard to believe that someone as tomboyish as her would spend SO MUCH time doing her make-up and styling her hair to the point it looks FLAWLESS. Her hair was obviously professionally done, and her make-up was always to perfection! If this were real life and she was doing all that HERSELF, it would take her a while to get all done up like that, it's just hard to picture EARLY Elly Mae taking that much time on make-up and hair styling. Do you think they should have just let her go totally rugged, messy hair, no make-up, etc....? Especially in the early years

Maybe the idea was that she was a natural beauty, so when she woke up in the morning, her hair automatically fell into place, etc. Of course you can only suspend belief so far, but the show was very cartoonish.