Tenacious, ragged, and wild, I never did lose my eyebrows with chemotherapy. It figures, because that was one feature I was really hoping to shed. Nope, they are as stubborn as the German/Italian who owns them. At least, once shaped last December, they stayed in line for a little while.

I’d hoped to be able to start from scratch, as it were. Maybe I would pencil in some sexy Marilyn Monroe brows. Then I’d thought about painting them in Joan Crawford-style, nice and sultry. Joan’s are still a bit heavy for my taste. So I googled “actress eyebrows” for more ideas. That yielded some good ones.

Natalie Portman is a standout in the brows department. I think it helps if you look pouty and reveal lots of shoulder and cleavage. Keira Knightley looks pretty good. But there’s lots of hair covering her face, so it’s hard to get a real peek at what her brows are all about. Scarlett Johansson has eyebrows that are perfectly shaped. Scarlett is very blonde, however. I don’t think those would fit my coloring.

Back at the drawing board, I googled “eyebrows” and came up with a website called “Find the
Perfect Eyebrow Shape for your Faceshape” at http://www.eyebrowz.com/faceshape.htm. First, you have to define the shape of your face. If you’re still unsure after scrutinizing the six basic face shapes, there appears to be some measuring with a ruler involved.

I thought I might have an oval-shaped face, so I clicked on that one to speed up the process. Here’s what I learned: “(The oval face) is considered the ideal face shape. The brows play no role in making the face appear ‘more oval’--it already is oval. The ‘perfect’ brow shape is generally considered to be the soft angled shape. This is in fact our most popular stencil shape, and works beautifully with an oval face shape.”

Now I was really curious. I had no idea stenciling was part of the deal. There were “Grace Kelly stencils” and “Jennifer Aniston” ones. They came with code numbers and bands that went around the head to hold the plastic stencils in place. The stencils were “non-adhesive” and “easily cleaned.” This was all getting very complicated. I decided to be thankful I got to have dainty eyebrows, if only for a short while, and I let it go at that. In my next life, though, it’s Natalie Portman brows all the way.