Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(N.Z.) ostentatious but ultimately unimpressive.

1997		B. Anderson Proud Garments 12: ‘Dog trade?’ ‘People who’re putting on the dog. All hair oil and no socks’.
1998		Creative Forum 14: Proud Garments (1996) is conventional, dealing with people who have beautiful clothes but nothing of substance underneath: ‘all hair oil and no socks.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 10: all hair oil and no socks Flashy but unimpressive, often used of a superficially impressive performer, who ultimately disappoints.
2011		P. Thomas Peter Bush 196: Mahoney, who later went to South Africa to work on the Rand Daily Mail, was a strange cove, all hair oil and no socks as the saying went.